Jason Silva, host of National Geographic’s Brain Games, started off Content All Stars by pushing the audience out of their comfort zone so that they were ready to gain a fresh perspective on the power of awe to prompt innovation.
Articles by: "DCN"
Jason Silva Kicks off Content All Stars with a Shot of Awe
Recommended Reading: Coverage of DCN’s Content All Stars
Soledad O’Brien Brilliantly Explains How Brands Should Work With Elite Storytellers
Modern media companies want brands to underwrite the stories they can’t necessarily afford to tell, and brands want to be a part of great stories. But very often, that partnership doesn’t work because brands are reluctant to do the things that go into truly great storytelling: namely, taking a leap of faith and relinquishing control.
One person who’s been able to bridge that gap is Soledad O’Brien, famed broadcast journalist and founder of Starfish Media Group, who has worked with brands such as CoverGirl to great incredibly compelling viral content…Read More on Contently
5 Takeaways from Content All Stars
On Thursday, September 18 theOnline Publishers Association held its first event that was open to the public — and then CEO Jason Kint announced that the organization was changing its name to Digital Content Next to reflect the changing industry. He did this at the end of a long, informative day at Content All Stars, where everyone from Werner Brell, managing director of Red Bull Media House to Soledad O’Brien shared their content secrets with the audience at the Conrad Hotel in New York City.
Here are a few takeaways and themes from the day’s programming that all content creators can learn from… Read More on EContent
Real-World Insight On The Power Of Storytelling
Last week in New York City, the Online Publishers Association (just rebranded as Digital Content Next) held its Content All Stars event, bringing together marketing and digital media leaders to share their insight on creating compelling content experiences in today’s world of hyper-connected audiences. Following are some words of wisdom across a few common themes for any creator of content to consider… Read more at Dialogue
Online Publishers Association Announces Rebrand to ‘Digital Content Next’
Thirteen-year-old association’s new identity signals its focus on digital innovation and the creation of opportunities for high-quality digital content companies today and in the future
New York, NY (September 19, 2014) – The organization formerly known as the Online Publishers Association (OPA) today announces a new name, Digital Content Next, a rebrand that signals a renewed focus on defining and confronting critical, big picture issues that its members face when creating digital content experiences for consumers and marketers.
Digital Content Next (DCN) is the only trade association that exclusively serves the diverse needs of digital content companies that manage direct, trusted relationships with consumers and marketers. With a diverse and powerful group of members – from established media brands such as The New York Times, Discovery Networks and Sports Illustrated, to digital natives, such as Vox, Slate and Business Insider, Digital Content Next’s membership has an unduplicated audience of more than 220 million unique visitors or 100% reach of the U.S. online population.*
The association hired a new CEO in May of this year, Jason Kint, former SVP and GM of CBS Interactive’s Sports division, and welcomed six new members to its elite membership of 55 brands in early September.
Kint’s focus for Digital Content Next is on guiding its members and the industry and setting the agenda for discussions on issues ranging from net neutrality to revenue innovation to privacy.
“Our members wake up every morning thinking about how to create great content experiences and monetize them,” Kint said. “Together we must pave the way for the content companies of the future to do the same, with powerful, dependable content that brings large audiences to their screens, engages and entertains them and compels them to share across other platforms.”
Digital Content Next will serve as a focal point for issues affecting digital content companies, providing thought leadership and proprietary research through its newly-launched content hub, InContext; hosting highly-focused member events to facilitate open and honest discussion; voicing issues of concern from a legislative perspective and creating a dialogue with the industry-at-large through conferences and summits like its Content All Stars for media and marketing leaders, held yesterday in New York City.
“The entire landscape has changed and the word ‘online’ doesn’t feel as relevant as it did 13 years ago with digital integrated into every corner of our lives,” says Kint, new CEO of Digital Content Next. “We have a responsibility to be forward-thinking in how we help our members and the industry overall imagine their future and to provide them the guidance and shared intelligence to make the bold decisions required to lead and innovate in our industry.
As part of the rebrand, Digital Content Next outlined the core values that underscore the work it does with members, policy makers, advertisers and agencies every day in its Trust Principles, also announced today:
1. We believe in an open Internet in which consumers and marketers may directly associate with our brands.
2. We are aware of the many choices of consumers across more and more platforms. We will honor their trust in our brands and relentlessly advocate for their respect.
3. We are aware of the many choices of marketers across more and more platforms. We will shine a light on the falsehoods and misconceptions in the modern digital marketplace in order to defend members’ businesses, particularly in the areas of ad tech and cross media attribution.
4. We will have a seat at the table representing trusted first party relationships in any discussion among advertisers, policy makers and the press.
5. We will create a trusted forum among members to share strategic insights, best practices and tactics in order to ensure a vibrant original content marketplace.
“The companies that millions of people turn to for their news, commentary, sports, entertainment, educational and professional information rely on us to understand how they can best serve their audiences and bolster their businesses,” says Martin Nisenholtz, who founded the Online Publishers Association. “With this reset, we will be working to push the industry forward to its next level of development.”
Plenty NYC (plentynyc.com), a full service advertising agency specializing in the creation of captivating digital campaigns, designed the Digital Content Next visual identity and new website.
*comScore Media Metrix, January 2014
ABOUT DIGITAL CONTENT NEXT
Founded in June 2001 as the Online Publishers Association, Digital Content Next is a not-for-profit trade organization dedicated to representing high-quality digital content brands before the advertising community, the press, the government and the public. The OPA produces proprietary research on advertising and media consumption online for our members and the public, creates public and private forums to explore and advance key issues that impact content brands, and works to educate the public at large on the importance of quality content brands. More information about Digital Content Next is available at www.digitalcontentnext.com.
The Trust Principle: Digital Content Can’t Thrive Without Trust
Digital media has three major stakeholders: consumers, marketers and publishers. None of them are happy. Marketers are frustrated by fraud, a lack of measurability and questionable attribution. Consumers are increasingly distrustful in the face of clickbait, privacy leaks and ethical lapses in journalism. Publishers are faced with piracy, copyright infringement and a world in which brand advertising for content companies has barely grown since 2010.
The relationship between these three parties, like all relationships, is built on trust. However, in a world in which innovation and automation are accelerating, the number of ways in which these
relationships are being strained is also increasing. Digital content companies cannot stand idle while technologies disrupt and wealth accrues to the companies who benefit from our content while fracturing that trust.
These issues of trust and innovation significantly affect the next stage in the evolution of digital media. It also affects our organization, the only one that exclusively represents digital content companies. That means living by three core operating principles:
It’s About Leadership, Not Maintenance
First, we–the original content creators need to be aggressive and lead rather than working through consensus supporting the status quo. The two charts here clarify the situation quite starkly.
Brand advertising and consumer revenue pay for original content yet 71% of the total digital advertising pie is going to the top ten companies (none of which are thought of as “content companies”) and 65% of digital advertising comes from performance media. Other types of revenue that pay for digital content have failed to transpire as expected. Direct consumer revenue has seen limited success with only the most differentiated and exclusive brands.
One can quickly see that the economics that pay for original content have been crowded out by a world of commoditized performance based advertising that requires the industry to chase
audience tracking, targeting and clicks at the expense of context and experience. That direction hurts all three stakeholders; no one wins. The measure of great content and brand marketing is earning a share of consumers’ time, attention and emotion not in driving clicks. We need a future that reflects that.
If we simply seek to maintain the status quo, we leave the future to others who will build it and benefit from it. We must lead and provide a singular voice. In that regard, we are a resource for press, marketers and policy makers turn who seek the perspective of the content companies.
We Must Recognize Our Part In The Ecosystem
Second, we need to be transparent and build relationships with other associations, influencers and agents of change. We are the only organization that exclusively represents digital content companies.
We’re different than the platforms and distributors the Googles, Apples, Yahoos, Facebooks, Twitters. Our core business is the creation of the content that people love, whether it’s news, entertainment, financial information or sports.
We’re different than the Ad Tech complex that carves up marketers media spend in pursuit of better audience targeting. Our member brands have been built on a foundation of trust and direct relationships with consumers and marketers.
We’re even different than the IAB, a well-run and influential organization, which carries the broad responsibility of representing all of the sellers of digital inventory including nearly two hundred ad
networks and exchanges. We are the content creators.
We’re different. But we succeed or fail by how we work together and understand each other, even when we disagree. When we take a different position, others need to understand it.
Our Research Must Focus On What’s Next More Than What Happened
Third, we need to provide research with a forward-looking
perspective — more like a think tank than a reflection pool for our members and the industry overall. We must pave the way, not just for the current content companies, but for those of the future that haven’t even been imagined yet.
Ultimately, we must make sure that the ecosystem can continue to pay for the creation of high-quality content in the future — powerful,dependable content that both consumers and marketers trust. We must continue to earn that trust by delivering great content experiences to consumers. We must relentlessly defend the best interests of marketers and shine a light on the falsehoods particularly in ad tech and attribution. We must fight for an open internet in which consumers and marketers can directly consume our content and brands in a fair marketplace.
So as we go forward, I challenge all of us to think more openly about the future of our digital content businesses. Our future is one filled with great innovation and automation that can only come from digital. We should embrace these opportunities while putting systems in place to protect the trust our brands have earned from marketers and consumers.
This moment in time marks a great evolution for the OPA into not merely representing the future of digital content, but influencing its course. As such we felt this was the perfect opportunity to reflect this new attitude and perspective in a name change for our organization from the Online Publishers Association to Digital Content Next: Eyes always on the future, and our feet firmly planted on a foundation of trust.
Digital Content Next
Advancing the Future Of Trusted Content.
Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2014
Click here to view the research item.
Study Reveals Best Practices for Instagram Ads
Click here to view the research item.
Q&A With Greg Jackson, Chief Data Officer, Everyday Health Inc. on Cross-Platform Advertising
This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights… If you want to learn more, keep an eye out on our site for more interviews. Today’s Three on Three interview is with Greg Jackson, Chief Data Officer, Everyday Health Inc. on the subject of cross-platform advertising.
Q: What is the biggest hurdle in creating, selling and delivering cross-platform advertising initiatives?
A:The biggest challenge in cross-platform communication is the accurate and timely linking of users’ attributes across devices. Many publishers have the capability to personalize an experience or target advertising to specific segments within a single platform. However, without a mechanism to identify the same user as they migrate between devices, the continuity of content and advertising messaging, as well as, measurement is lost.
At Everyday Health, user registration provides the foundation for our cross-channel attribution. With over 65 million users and a third of all US physicians registered on our properties, we are able to bring together an individual’s activity and interests to provide a seamless targeting platform for content and marketing.
Similar to Pandora personalizing a music experience, Everyday Health personalizes health content. An Everyday Health registered user specifies their initial health interests, and our content personalization engine begins customizing their experience on site and in newsletters, regardless of the access device. As a user provides feedback into what they like or don’t like, the targeting algorithm becomes further refined for a better, more relevant experience that delivers higher engagement.
The same applies to the user targeting capabilities we provide our advertising partners. As a user migrates between devices, our registration data and shared ad serving platform, facilitate the continuity of a marketer’s campaign. More importantly, we are able to measure the impact of those campaigns on a user’s offline behavior for true ROI measurement.
All of this is made possible by a singular data platform that provides a holistic view of a user’s interests and activities and a capacity to leverage that information in real-time across platforms. At Everyday Health, we have invested well over $100 million to aggregate and engage our registered audience with personalized content and marketing because relevancy matters.
Q: Describe one of your recent or forthcoming cross-platform advertising campaigns that you think is particularly innovative or successful.
A:We believe that every digital campaign is a cross-platform campaign regardless of whether it’s intended or not. Users will access content whenever, wherever and on whatever device they want and it is our job as digital publishers and marketers to migrate our messaging across these platforms. We deliver most campaigns to the target user agnostic to platform, instead optimizing for engagement and offline impact.
Everyday Health has been delivering cross-platform solutions in digital for over ten years, and are now beginning a new cross-platform integration between digital and TV. We have matched our health audience to set-top box data to better understand the TV programming that specific user segments are watching. We are now working with a major pharmaceutical company to concentrate their TV marketing to those stations and programs where their target audience over-indexes. While 1:1 addressable TV at scale is still developing, this new audience-centric approach across TV and digital platforms will amplify the media dollar impact of both channels and deliver ROI improvement.
Q: How do you approach the cross-platform sale organizationally?
A:Our sales team is solution oriented, not aligned by channel. We understand that a marketer’s key objective is to inform and motivate their target audience to take action. It’s our responsibility to know our audience, provide engaging solutions across devices, and then optimize delivery based on the real behavior impact each is having. To be successful at this, we cannot be constrained by channel silos but instead leverage the best delivery mechanism for driving consumers to take action.
As audiences become more mobile, marketers are beginning to acknowledge the need for cross-platform buys. The channel specific agencies, budgets, and strategies are beginning to converge and our investment in audience, data and platform will insure we can successfully support their objectives for the future.
Greg Jackson is the Chief Data Officer for Everyday Health. As CDO, Jackson is responsible for establishing data acquisition and utilization strategies for the firm and he is directly responsible for the company’s Precision Health Data Institute. Jackson also oversees Health Reach, the company’s off-portfolio targeted media solution. Prior to joining Everyday Health, Jackson served as President and CMO of Fathead. He has 20+ years’ experience in operations management and direct marketing, with a focus on cross-channel marketing, user engagement and lifetime value optimization, and audience monetization.
Note: This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights.
Also in this series:
Q&A with Rachelle Considine, President Future US, on Cross-Platform Advertising
A Good Look: Inside the Media and Marketing Opportunities of Wearable Tech
Much of the buzz at CES last week surrounded wearable technology—clothing and accessories that incorporate computer and electronic technologies. Yet given that the C in CES stands for consumer, it isn’t a great surprise that much of the coverage took the form of breathless accounts of the latest toy or snarky critiques of wearable tech aesthetics. CNET.com editor at large Brian Cooley was in attendance and turned a keen eye to the wearable tech on display as he gears up for his New Content Platforms session at next week’s OPA Summit (January 22-24 in Miami, Fl.) – the 12th annual meeting for members of the Online Publishers Association.
Right now, Cooley says there are three main classes of wearable devices that marketers and content companies need to be keeping an eye on: Fitness bands, watches and glasses. To date, Google Glass has been the poster child for this emerging group of products. However Cooley says the most mature area is Fitness Bands and one that presents some very interesting opportunities for marketers. Given that on mobile devices, consumers expect increasingly personalized experiences, wearable tech offers great promise in improving data quality. “In a way,” says Cooley, “the fitness band is the other shoe we’ve been waiting to drop since mobile started.”
As he points out, “Marketers could do a lot with the data these devices gather about users’ lifestyle and behaviors.” The data gathered, says Cooley, would be almost “100 percent pure” as opposed to other forms of information gathering. “Most of the data we have now is somewhere between a good estimation and a lie. Remember that buying athletic shoes doesn’t mean someone is active.”
The opportunity for this level of granular and accurate data would allow for unrivaled content targeting. “Think about it: you could message Nyquil only to those who are sick,” he says. There are, however, still significant hurdles to overcome in tapping into this “tantalizing data,” not the least of which is the fact that device makers he has spoken to “don’t plan to give away their customer information and risk that relationship.”
Cooley also cautions those thinking about tying their messages to wearable devices to approach this highly-personalized experience carefully, noting that “the concern is intrusion, which resonates around all of these products.” While you might be able to access a photo someone took via their Glasses while out drinking with friends—and be tempted to use it to send the wearer an advertisement about their beverage of choice—marketers must balance this with consumers’ privacy concerns.
Cooley encourages content makers that are eying wearable devices to “attack consumers’ needs and keep the products at an arms distance.” While he realizes that this may not sound ideal for marketers, he says that you have to be “even more sensitive to users’ ‘personal space’ than even smartphones. Deliver information, not ‘messages’ and you’ll connect with them.”
There may also be an opportunity for content companies and marketers to work with device makers to take these products mainstream. “Wearables in general are waiting for a killer app,” says Cooley. “The fitness bands and watches aren’t doing anything too unheard of. The trick is to put it together so that there is a compelling reason to use them. While device makers are good at building the devices, helping them to that next level of relevance is an opportunity for media companies and marketers.”
At the OPA Summit, Cooley will focus on the reality, challenges and genuine opportunities presented by wearable technology. He’ll also provide attendees with users-eye-view videos to help media executives envision the best possible experiences. And following his session, attendees will have an opportunity to get their hands on several wearable devices including the Samsung Gear Smartwatch, Atiz Innovation’s Wellograph Watch and Avegant’s Glyph Headgear.