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Articles by: "Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN"

Innovation

What AccuWeather’s Facebook chatbot says about AI

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Artificial Intelligence is a term used to describe everything from Apple’s Siri to Google’s Deep Mind and is being leveraged for a wide range of applications from shopping to quantum computing. At its core, AI is the capacity of computing to perform tasks that correspond to decision making and learning by humans. True AI doesn’t just infer or make deductions, it understands natural language, and can develop based upon experience.

Today, AI powers everyday tools used by millions of people. With the rising popularity of voice-based interfaces such as Google Home and Amazon Alexa – and the increasingly-accurate recommendation tools offered by the likes of Netflix and Pandora – AI tools are becoming embedded in people’s everyday activities and expectations.

Meet the Bots

Chatbots are another booming implementation of AI. That said, not all of them are powered by AI. As Trish Mikita, AccuWeather’s VP of Digital Media Strategy points out, “There are plenty of dumb bots out there. Many bots are based upon simple decision trees that use a scripted format to (eventually) deliver answers to common questions. Mikita says AccuWeather experimented with this approach in the past, however its latest chatbot leverages true AI.

The company has just launched AccuWeather for Facebook Messenger. The AI-powered weather assistant handles plain-language questions from users and provides easy weather-related answers. According to Mikita, Facebook Messenger was the natural choice for this launch given its large user base and the fact that AccuWeather fans were already communicating with the company on Messenger. “Messenger is a great platform that extends our conversations with customers in a natural way.”

Natural Language, Real Answers

AccuWeather’s chatbot—which was dubbed Abbi in beta — strives to be natural in its conversation. “The goal with us is for users to be able to ask a question, for our chatbot to come with an intent, and then answer the question in a meaningful way,” says Mikita.

So, while Abbi can answer questions about the weather forecast, she can also advise on appropriate attire for the day. The idea is for the chatbot to provide an accurate response given the context of a run in Cape Cod or a business meeting in Manhattan.

According to Mikita, being able to respond, “no it’s going to be 75 and sunny, no need for a jacket today” is a great first step. However, as the chatbot evolves, she looks forward to answers like “not today, but you’ll need an umbrella if you are going to be out later tonight.” To get there, AccuWeather is logging all of its audience interactions with Abbi. “This helps us with all of our products, so we can better understand users’ intent.”

Evolution of AccuWeather AI

Another step in AccuWeather’s chatbot evolution will be developing a personality. “A bot absolutely needs to have a personality, though it is a big challenge.” First, says Mikita, you must understand intent and get the outputs to be accurate. “The next phase is that personality piece. Natural interactions should have a personality. But having a personality doesn’t mean it has to be irreverent, or jokey. It can be a science nerd. Getting that personality to match our brand voice is a very important aspect.”

Mikita says that in addition to the continued development of Abbi (which may well have a name change in her future as the bot’s personality and functionality evolve), we can expect more AI-based launches coming within the next few months. The long-term roadmap also includes wrapping the intelligence piece into the AccuWeather API and incorporating these functions into its subscription products. AccuWeather’s presence on Alexa – as well as its evolving chatbots and plans for improved and innovative implementations of AI in its premium products – offers what Mikita describes as an “innovation opportunity that helps our other ad supported platforms.”

The company is already seeing efficiency savings with customer service. And they look forward to emerging opportunities to monetize these innovations directly. In the meantime, however, the company’s investment in AI is paying off in its ability to better interact with consumers, to get to know them better and to better serve their needs.

Industry-Research

Optimism conflicts with reality in digital transformation, but startup partnerships show promise

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Today, business leaders across the US are aware of the importance of digital transformation, regardless of their industry. However, as most know, it is not an easy undertaking and needs to go well beyond buzzwords to truly change an organization.

It is helpful to understand how leaders prioritize digital transformation and how they evaluate their progress. To that end, digital consultant and company builder etventure, with the support of market research firm YouGov, has published the results of their study “Digital Transformation and Cooperation with Startups.” The aim of the study was to ascertain the current state of digital transformation in mid-to-large companies. It looks at the significance of digitization; progress and barriers; digital transformation activities; and the impact on employees. The report also examines cooperation with startups as a means to accelerate digital transformation in larger, more established organizations.

The State of Digital Transformation

The report identifies three levels of digitization: incremental, transformative and disruptive. Incremental digitization involves the digitization of existing business processes and customer experience. Transformative digitization involves new digital business models, while disruptive digitization is a radical reinvention of the existing business. Digital transformation, for the purposes of this study, include transformative and disruptive digitization. However, the report does not view incremental digitization as transformation.

Survey respondents recognize the importance of digital transformation and have made it a top priority. Unfortunately, while the overwhelming majority of companies surveyed rank digitization as critically important to their businesses, the study found that many of the activities classified as digital transformation are actually incremental changes. According to the report, “many businesses have a false sense of security.” They also find that transformation is often delegated rather than aggressively driven from the top.

Other key takeaways include:

  • There is a heavy reliance on IT teams to deliver transformation initiatives, even though many IT teams lack the entrepreneurial DNA required for true transformation.
  • Although survey respondents rank digital transformation as business-critical, only 3% of business state their CEOs are directly involved with management of digital transformation.
  • Nearly all survey respondents are currently undertaking some form of digital project. However, these projects are rarely disruptive or transformational.
  • Traditional business environments are poorly suited for digital transformation, as true transformation cannot be a part-time exercise.
  • Businesses lack an appreciation for how true transformation might lead to a fundamental shakeup of business, with a significant impact on employees at all levels.
  • The majority of businesses surveyed do not see startups as a threat.

Moving Forward

While it is heartening to read that leaders believe that the vast majority of their staff are equipped to undertake digital transformation, they point out that it is unrealistic to assume, as survey respondents indicate, that 90% of employees are ready for the challenges make an impact on revenue or market share in less than one year. Digital transformation isn’t just about digital processes and business models. Instead, true digital transformation requires significant cultural change. Thus, it is essential to help employees prepare for digital transformation.

While many businesses put all their energy into driving digital transformation themselves, another way of coping with digital transformation is to cooperate with the disrupters themselves: startups. Most startups are in dire need of what traditional businesses have – an established customer base, market experience and reach. For traditional businesses, collaboration with startups enables them to get on the fast track to true transformation – with low risk. Cooperation between corporations and startups brings together two very different cultures, which can be challenging. However, the report views corporate/startup collaboration as typically a win-win.

Innovation | Revenue

When shift happens at Telemundo, opportunity knocks

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For years, Telemundo was viewed as a distant second to Univision’s domination of America’s Hispanic media market. Then, shift started to happen. Now, “Every week, prime time ratings are a nail biter,” according to NBC Universals’ EVP of Digital Media and Emerging Businesses, Peter Blacker. But—like most overnight success stories—this shift, which the company will highlight with it’s theme “Shift Happens” at the Upfronts on May 16, has been happening for some time now.

Blacker traces the origins of Telemundo’s strong and steady growth trend to its decision a few years ago to focus on “Generation M.” No, that doesn’t just stand for the desirable millennial demographic. Telemundo’s definition includes two other major factors that are impacting media: multiculturalism and mobile.

The racial breakdown of the American consumer is steadily moving towards a multicultural majority made up of non-whites. From a programing perspective, that means that audiences are more socially complex and less starkly defined. Combined with the technological forces of social and mobile, a wave of innovation is occurring at NBCUniversal overall, and Telemundo in particular.

Authentic content and ongoing relationships

According to Blacker, this is readily apparent in their approach to social content. They consider the unique properties of each social platform and aim to create distinct experiences and programming for each one. As an example, Blacker noted the shift in their social efforts around their popular Telemundo series El Señor De Los Cielos, which boasts 8.5 million Facebook fans. “We used to approach these shows as very connected to television programming. When the show was on the air, we were very active. Then, when the show ended, we went on to the next show.”

However, those millions of fans had a year-round appetite. With the help of some additional staff, his social team worked with the show’s writers to create eight-minute mini-episodes to “feed the fan base all year.” Other social-specific content may take the form of a simple gif or meme. The important part, according to Blacker, is that it is that the quality and tone accurately reflect what the audience loves about the show itself. And the strategy seems to have paid off. And the strategy seems to have paid off. According to Shareablee’s 2016 data, “not only did Telemundo come up as the biggest inside NBCU, top three across all media companies.”

When the developers on Blacker’s team approached the studio about creating a second-screen app experiences for El Señor De Los Cielos “they wanted to kill us” because of the added complexity. The app, Double Acción, uses audio queues to sync up access to secret archives, exclusive photos, videos, trivia, games and more. The impact of their complex request was softened when AT&T signed on as app’s debut sponsor.

Much Ado about innovation and monetization

Blacker notes that the ability to work closely with the larger creative team at NBCUniversal helps keep Telemundo’s social strategy authentic to their show brands. He also points to NBCUniversal’s investments in companies like Buzzfeed and Snapchat, as well as its own innovation lab, as inspiring and informing experimentation.

Blacker hinted at multiple pioneering projects that will be announced at the Upfronts in May, including virtual reality and ad innovations. An advance preview can be seen in his partnership with Buzzfeed on a digital telenovela “Much Ado About Nada.” The program will take the form of 10-minute episodes that will be distributed on a weekly basis across Telemundo and BuzzFeed digital platforms. It was created in response to research about what resonates with Generation M, this younger, mobile-oriented and multicultural audience.

The ability to identify and engage Generation M has supported continued investment in innovation, Blacker said. “Our partners are trying to connect with a multicultural millennial audience on mobile devices. That is the future of their business.”

Ultimately, said Blacker, “the reason why we’ve been able to continue to invest in virtual reality and new pioneering formats like the Buzzfeed project is because we’ve been able to connect with sponsors and advertisers. We’ve developed a reputation for innovation that we can back up with scale.”

Industry-Research

The Associated Press offers a guide to artificial intelligence in the newsroom

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At the Associated Press, the news department leaders were the first to suggest trying artificial intelligence. They were motivated by two mega trends in the media business: “the relentless increase in news to be covered and the human constraints associated with covering it.”

In 2013, the AP teamed up with Durham, North Carolina-based Automated Insights to automate the production of certain types of news stories directly from data. They started with sports and then extended the initiative to corporate earnings reports. Since then, the AP has continued to experiment with AI and recently published “A guide for newsrooms in the age of smart machines” based upon on its own learnings as well interviews with dozens of experts in the fields of journalism, technology, academia and entrepreneurship.

What they’ve found is that “artificial intelligence can do much more than churn out straightforward sports briefs and corporate earnings stories. It can enable journalists to analyze data; identify patterns, trends and actionable insights from multiple sources; see things that the naked eye can’t see; turn data and spoken words into text; text into audio and video; understand sentiment; analyze scenes for objects, faces, text or colors — and more.”

Key Takeaways

Among the key takeaways in the report is that, in the field of journalism, AI has potential to:

  • Attend to menial tasks and free journalists to engage in more complex, qualitative reporting.
  • Enhance communication and collaboration among journalists.
  • Enable journalists to sift through large corpuses of data, text, images, and videos.
  • Help journalists better communicate and engage with their audience.
  • Empower the creation of entirely new types of journalism.

In addition to providing insights into the practical journalistic applications of AI, the report covers the relevant technologies in this field—including machine learning, supervised learning, natural language processing, robotics, computer vision, and more. It looks at the potential impact of AI on journalists and journalism. It also considers ethical, philosophical and practical implications of implementing AI within media environments.

Above all, the report focuses on the potential for AI-human “collaboration” in which journalists are freed from many of the craft’s more mundane or repetitive tasks. Rather, leveraging AI can save organizations time and money, while being better equipped “to keep pace with the with the growing scale and scope of the news itself.”

Marketing

A timeline of the YouTube brand safety debacle

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The link between a positive sentiment around context and ad effectiveness has been established. And, though there’s not yet been definitive research on the subject, the reverse seems an intuitive given. Ads running in negative or unfavorable contexts would be less effective.

So, it might seem that the recent uproar around Google YouTube ad placement could be seen as a boon for premium publishers. But as has been well-documented, a lack of marketer trust in digital advertising is bad for the entire ecosystem, not simply the bad (or careless) actors. So it is with great interest that our industry has watched Google’s YouTube brand safety saga unfold.

Here are the highlights of how the story has developed so far:

March 16, 2017
March 17, 2017
March 21, 2017
March 22, 2017
March 23, 2017
March 24, 2017
March 25, 2017
March 26

FT | Advertisers seek Google discounts in video backlash

March 27, 2017
March 28, 2017
March 29, 2017
March 30, 2017
March 31, 2017
April 3, 2017
April 4, 2017
April 28, 2017
May 15, 2017
DCN-Research | Revenue

The power of focus: building a strong niche publishing business

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The media industry is in a time of great transition, in part due to the proliferation of digital publications and the growth and popularity of social platforms. While industry consolidation might threaten the independence of some publications, there is also an unprecedented opportunity for publishers to communicate their unique perspective to underserved, targeted audiences.

With this in mind—and with the help of funding from the Knight Foundation—Digital Content Next worked with Ascolese Associates on the research report Niche Publishers: How to Create Sustainable Business Models in a Digital Marketplace, released January 18. This niche publisher research examines how 11 digital publications each capture a unique space, attract audiences, and monetize those audiences.

“I know firsthand that we’re much more nimble than larger news organizations. We can try things out quickly. You know, we can try things out and fail fast, or we can try things out and see some early wins and then build on them. I really appreciate our ability to be nimble and flexible and measure our results and make quick decisions.”
Mary Walter-Brown, Voice of San Diego

The research identified two core focus areas for niche publishers that are vital for their success: content strategy and business strategy. According to the report, these core focus areas are made up of seven tactical components, which are discussed in detail: content development, editorial brand, audience development/ delivery, data, KPI’s, revenue streams and operational efficiencies.

Publishers interviewed agreed that superior content is the core deliverable, but content alone can’t drive a publication to success; an integrated business strategy is necessary. While a quest for scale dominates many digital strategies, niche publishers focus on providing distinctive, even unique content that meets the needs of a very specific audience.

Almost universally, these niche publishers emphasized something that has become a common theme across digital media: the importance of revenue diversification. Additional revenue streams give non-profit publishers more independence from corporate and individual sponsorships and for-profit publishers some independence from advertising sales.

“The number one mistake that media companies make is that they have a journalistic idea, and it’s not done in tandem with a business idea that operates in synchronicity with the journalistic idea.”
Jim Vandehei, Axios

Many niche publishers interviewed cite repurposing content and digital or live events among their revenue streams. However, other avenues include outsourcing internal talent, a “data store,” and a marketing membership program. Notable among these publishers is a willingness to collaborate and create partnerships that allow them to fight above their weight class in terms of staffing and data resources.

Ultimately, the report finds that a niche publication’s smaller size translates into a flexible and nimble environment and, often, a more entrepreneurial approach to their business. Notable among these publishers is a willingness to collaborate and create partnerships that allow them to maximize their staffing and data resources but also to ensure the viability of this segment of the digital media industry.

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Perspectives

The Big 10: Media executives call out the industry’s biggest challenges

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While it is appealing to start off a New Year with rosy predictions, it is also important to take a clear-eyed look at the road (and roadblocks) ahead. We asked a few of our members what they see as the biggest challenges the digital media industry faces today.

Here’s what leaders at ten diverse media companies see as the biggest challenge in the year to come:

———-

Scott Bailey, President, TEN Automotive Division
@TENenthusiast

Monetizing scaled social audiences and the content made for these channels is a challenge. We see the benefit of being a first mover and building a large social audience. That said, the benefit today lies heavily in the marketing value it provides in driving traffic to our sites and leveraging it to convert fans into paying customers through subscription offerings like Motor Trend OnDemand. We are able to monetize through advertising, but the nature of the monetization on social is more challenging to do at scale, as it requires a more custom approach compared to more traditional, turnkey placements/buys.

Jordan Bitterman, Chief Marketing Officer, The Weather Company, an IBM Business
@JordanBitterman @weathercompany

Our industry must build a parallel world adjacent to the current one dominated by Google and Facebook. This new world must be scaled, intelligent and open. Currently, 85 cents of every new dollar are going to the two biggest players because they have been solving for scaled and intelligent – and have done a great job doing so. But, an open garden is increasingly becoming a requirement for sophisticated advertisers who want partners who are flexible on data and transparent on pricing and performance.

Jim Brady CEO & Founder, Spirited Media
@jimbrady @spiritedmediaco

It’s hard to pick a “biggest” challenge, as there as so many. But, to me, refining user experience remains a crucial one. There are still way too many sites alienating readers for a quick buck by hammering them with pop-ups, unnecessary slideshows, pagination, interstitials and more. Yes, we need to make money. But gouging readers to the point where we drive them away is an abysmal long-term audience strategy. Treat your audience like you don’t care about them, and they will surely return the favor.”

Steven Smith, President of Digital Media, AccuWeather
@accuweather

In 2017, we continue to hurtle toward a ubiquitous global user audience, accessing data from every imaginable kind of device with a greater focus on personalization, localization, service and mobility. Content providers are going to have to step up to meet the needs of an audience that wants fast, relevant, and localized—and provided consistently regardless of device, from smartphones to connected refrigerators. That makes strong partnerships with vendors a necessity, from Cloud storage providers for scaling data to meet demand demands to robust content management solutions to help port news from format to format and device to device. And of course, the audience will continue to demand content that is more timely and relevant than ever.

Joy Jones, Vice President, Global Products, Associated Press
@AssociatedPress

The biggest challenge we face is building diverse streams of revenue that support innovative storytelling. In 2017, digital media companies must bridge the current divide between creating compelling stories that attract interest and attention, and the opportunities for monetization that are increasingly concentrated on just a few of the largest platforms. The industry is not going to be successful if there’s too much focus on trendy stories that spin up on a one-off basis or so-called native ad content that lacks authenticity. We need immersive and captivating high-quality content that engages diverse audiences and creates a wide fan base across emerging media platforms. That diversification of revenue will be critical to building and maintaining a sustainable engine for digital media innovation.

John Kosner, EVP, Digital & Print Media, ESPN
@JKosner @ESPN

Establishing timely and trusted cross-media measurement is an enormous challenge — but a critically important one. People consume media on an ever-growing number of platforms and devices and we must establish accurate ways to measure the total audience we reach and their engagement with content. That means having clear, trusted standards and metrics — which measure across TV, apps, web, OTT and more — and do so both in- and out-of-home. The connection people have with digitally-delivered content and advertising continues to grow enormously. But so does fake content and ad fraud. Trusted and transparently-measured environments will become ever-more valuable.

Beth Lawrence, EVP of Digital Ad Sales, Scripps Networks Interactive
@ScrippsNet

A big challenge in digital in 2017 will be the ability for clients and consumers to separate the wheat from the chaff. We all know digital is here to stay and continues to be a more important revenue driver every year. But the quality of digital content has been under the radar, and in the final analysis, marketers care what brands they associate with. Period. Content matters; quality content rules. It will be a year of cleaning up, properly measuring and delivering great results in digital.

Matt Minoff, SVP, Digital Platforms and Strategy, Meredith Corporation
@mattminoff @MeredithCorp

The biggest challenge will continue to be capturing consumer attention as existing platforms grow and new platforms emerge.

Vikki Neil, SVP/GM of Scripps Lifestyle Studios
@ScrippsNet

In digital, you must stay open to all ideas that come your way, but disciplined enough to say no to many. You must move quickly and not wait for perfection, but perfect what you do daily. There’s not time to develop a long-range plan like a traditional media business offers. From my seat, the biggest challenge is a combination of making the right bets, and moving as fast as humanly possible to understand the space before your competitors, so that you can build the best offering for consumers and advertisers. It’s impossible to be everywhere across all opportunities, so choose wisely, go quickly and iterate daily.

Alex Skatell, Founder and President, Independent Journal Review
@AlexSkatell @TheIJR

The biggest challenge for media is building community. The strategies that have propelled many digital media companies into large audiences are largely commoditized, so you need to figure out how to connect your content and communities together in a deeper and unique way.

Brendan Spain, VP, Advertising – Americas, Financial Times
@spanishbrendan @FT

The biggest challenge for digital media in 2017 will be for quality publishers to cut through the noise – of ad fraud, fake news, and non-human traffic – to command fair market pricing for their trusted brands and influential audiences. Evaluating and leveraging these trusted environments will continue to be both important and difficult as the market weighs chasing scale and audience against quality and transparency.

Domenic Venuto, General Manager, Consumer Division, The Weather Company, an IBM Business
@dvenuto @weathercompany

As we look at the 2017 media landscape, there is potential for a massive upheaval on multiple fronts with the forecasted political uncertainty. The industry is resilient and adaptable, and we must remain focused on building great products for fans. And perhaps anxiety is unwarranted.

Industry-Research

What you need to know about digital video advertising in 7 charts

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Okay, let’s start off with an obvious—but critical—fact: Just about everybody’s watching digital video. According to comScore, almost every demographic watches some form of digital video each month.

comscoreaudience

12-1hThat said, it is clear from the comScore chart that there are segments that are consuming more than others. And, According to Defy Media, consumers aged 13-24 watch 12.1 hours of video per week on YouTube, social media and other free online sources, and another 8.8 hours weekly on Netflix and other subscription-video services. (That’s more than two and a half times the 8.2 hours weekly they spend watching television.)

While few of these younger viewers adore advertising, they are much more amenable to a brief sponsorship announcement or product integration is than the traditional preroll.

okads

In its 2016 Digital Ad Spend Study, the International Advertising Bureau (IAB) reported that Digital Video and Original Digital Video budget allocations resulting from the NewFronts event have steadily increased over the last 3 years. Their research finds that ad spending on original digital video programming has increased 114% since 2014 and, on average, marketers and advertisers are spending more than $10 million annually on Digital Video, representing an 85% increase from 2 years ago.

averagevideoadspenddoubling

According to Statista, there’s still plenty of room for growth, though. Statista analysts expect the digital ad market to grow at an average rate of 10.9% over the next five years, with social media and video advertising outpacing the overall market’s growth. And while search marketing is forecast to remain the largest share of digital advertising, it is predicted to rise about 57% whereas video is expected to experience an 80% increase.

digital_ad_market_growthstatista

While marketers find video to be among the most effective content type used in content marketing initiatives, they also rank creating it as among the most difficult, according to a report from Ascend2 and its Research Partners. Customer testimonials, explainer/tutorial videos and demonstration videos are ranked as the most effective types of video content marketing, per Ascend2’s research.

ascend2-most-effective-difficult-video-content-types-july2015

Time of viewing affects ad effectiveness. Online video advertising seems be most effective between the hours of 3 a.m. and 12 p.m., according to a study from cross-platform video advertising firm YuMe. They saw this trend across all age groups including millennials, Generation X, and baby boomers.

timedv

Mobile will be the biggest driver of digital-video ad spend over the next few years according to BI Intelligence. They found that US digital-video advertising revenue from PC- and mobile-based video ads will top nearly $5 billion this year, and grow at a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.9%.

bimobiledrivegrowth

Innovation | Perspectives | Revenue

Three key takeaways from the media leaders at Folio’s C-Summit

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As part of its annual show October 31-November 2, Folio hosted a one day C-Summit. The invitation-only event focused on top strategic imperatives for magazine media organizations. Led by Hanley Wood CEO Peter Goldstone, the day provided an intimate conversation between panelists and attendees.

Here are three key takeaways from the discussion:

1. People matter (a lot): Many of the day’s speakers expressed that competitive recruiting and managing millennials to their fullest potential are significant challenges. Across the board, it was apparent that these leaders feel that having the right people to drive the organization from both strategic and tactical levels is a top priority.

“We need to teach all employees to think about the end game and how they can contribute Give them a voice, an opportunity to express ideas and concerns… We need to give them pride of ownership in solutions.”

—Bonnie Kintzer, CEO TMBI

“It used to be that the people in charge knew everything…Well, we’re in a learn-together mode now, particularly as we try to build new lines of business. Of the 46 people we have hired at AIM since January, 32 have job descriptions that didn’t exist before they were hired.”

—Andrew W. Clurman, President & CEO, Active Interest Media (AIM)

“The scariest thing is to have an opportunity but not have the capacity to deliver. For example, we find that companies want to connect with customers by feeding them, but staffing the event side has been a challenge… Creating the right culture is absolutely critical.”

—Catherine Neville, Publisher & Founder, Feast Magazine

“Running a media related company over the past 10 years has been a tough job. There are a lot of dead men walking. Employees are key to transforming business. You need to attract, retain, and develop people who will change your business or you will be one of those dead men walking.”

—Tom Kemp, Chairman CEO of Northstar Travel Group

2. Advertising is data and context driven: Digital advertising is increasingly driven by data—particularly in the B2B space, which is focused on lead-generation. However, context matters as does bigger-picture understanding of what the advertiser’s objectives are and how to creatively accomplish those goals.

“Advertisers are asking: What is the value you are going to give us, how are you going to bundle stuff? That said, they don’t always really know what they are asking. They want, and need you to know more about their biz than they do.”

—Jim Elliot, President James C. Elliot Co. Inc.

“We have to be sure we are producing products our customers want to buy, not just what we want to sell, so that we continue to have the relationship with them that supports the business. And yes, we need to be able to provide as much audience data as possible. We’re thinking less about selling advertising than selling all the assets we have.”

—Tom Kemp, Chairman CEO of Northstar Travel Group

“Programmatic is inevitable because it is a far more efficient for sellers and buyers. At Hanley Wood, we love programmatic because we have the data. What we’re seeing is a bifurcation in the value proposition between what publishers brought to the table—the value of our insight around the data and the audience—versus the value of the content and placing ads in context.”

—Peter Goldstone, CEO, Hanley Wood

“Thinking about some of the new players…yes, they are taking dollars away and disrupting things because they play by their own rules. But we must continue to behave in a way that is extremely responsible because of our brands’ reputations. We’ve been successful with our ad-sales guarantee. We’ve partnered with Nelsen to measure return on ad spend. We spend a lot of time on measurement and in our strategic partnerships. It is an area of emphasis and focus to demonstrate efficacy.”

—Mark Rothschild, SVP, Meredith Digital.

3. You’ve got to put your money where your progress is. Despite a seemingly endless desire to innovate, the reality is that resources are finite and making smart decisions about what to fuel and what to fold is critical.

“We have to focus on how to grow the business despite managing a mature print portfolio. There’s always a lot to do, but what do you choose not to do is just as important. As you think about your portfolio, resource allocation decisions are imperative.”

 —Peter Goldstone, CEO, Hanley Wood

“We looked at a lot of areas with underperforming assets, many outside the US, which we are in the process of selling. We are focused on being a strong US and Canadian content producer. The hardest parts are the print versus the digital pieces of the game.”

—Bonnie Kintzer, CEO TMBI

“There are lots of new shiny ideas that pop up in this industry. Yes, some are good…but others aren’t, and you have to be able to tell the difference, or figure it out fast.”

 —Jim Elliot, President James C. Elliot Co. Inc.

“As an industry, there’s a drag of products that need to close, that have served their purpose, but closing them creates an opportunity to start something new. And there’s always a new opportunity.”

—David Carey, President, Hearst Magazines

Innovation | Marketing

The Weather Company’s JOURNEYfx location-based ads see the bigger picture

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Geo-targeted advertising is not new, but The Weather Company has always taken its own unique path due to its ability to collect a raft of highly-specific, location-related information. Add into that a parent company, IBM, with a focus on cognitive computing and it comes as no surprise that Weather’s latest entrant into the digital ad market, JOURNEYfx, goes well beyond location to offer a smarter kind of targeting.

Think of it like this: Previously, location-based advertising was targeted based on where you’ve been—say at a coffee shop last week. Since you’d been at a coffee shop, it seems appropriate to send you ads for premium coffee spots when you are in the vicinity. However, Domenic Venuto, General Manager, Consumer Division at The Weather Company points out that “you might have just gone in once—for a sandwich.” Not only would this targeting prove ineffective for the advertiser, the ads would likely annoy the consumer, with whom The Weather Company has a particularly intimate and trust-dependent relationship.

Based upon its ability to capture, combine and analyze the vast amount of data from The Weather Company’s 87 million monthly mobile users, JOURNEYfx changes the usual targeting scenario because it is able to “understand rituals, consumers’ patterns of behavior, and the best time to market in order to influence that behavior.” Thus, those premium coffee ads are served to someone who hits the coffee shop every morning between the gym and the office. Factor in the weather and JOURNEYfx will know whether to make it an ad for an iced coffee or a pumpkin spiced latte.

In an even more compelling example, Venuto describes an automotive shopper (who research tells us has almost always decided which car they’ll by before they turn up at a showroom). Between the first party data collected (you’ve been to two car lots in the past two week) and weather-specific information (it’s going to be sunny this weekend), and the data analysis of IBM’s Watson, JOURNEYfx can predict with an 80% degree of certainty that this shopper is going to buy a car this weekend. So now’s the time to serve up ads that will influence that purchase decision.

Venuto says that “one of the many benefits of acquisition by IBM is they get our data and platform and we get the scale and capabilities of IBM.” In particular, he cites IBM’s commitment to research and its focus on cognitive computing.

The union is impacting many aspects of Weather’s business beyond advertising, which is likely to become more apparent as voice- and intelligent-assistants such as Amazon Echo become increasingly popular. Venuto says that the company is using Watson at the data level and the weather forecasting level. It is also impacting the consumer experience because Watson “allows consumers to engage with our products using natural language—which affects our consumer product strategy.”

First and foremost, Venuto says The Weather Company remains focused on providing a product that “adds value to our consumers’ lives.” It also takes a measured approach to personalization that, according to Venuto, has seen that the highest engagement for advertising across every category comes when its contextually relevant. And that, he points out, is not something every provider of location based advertising can say. “If a consumer is using your product and says ‘hey wait a minute, why do they want to know where I am?’ because it isn’t an organic fit with the app, you are going to have some problems.”

Venuto describes The Weather Company’s relationship with its consumers as being a deeply engrained part of their daily ritual: Millions of consumers grab their phones to check the weather before they even get out of bed and check in again several times a day—more if severe weather will affect them or their loved ones. A unique and highly personal category of information that allows JOURNEYfx to identify patterns in consumer behavior throughout a given day, week and year and then serve up ads that anticipate their needs.

Industry-Research

Media companies’ Facebook relationship status: It’s complicated

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The relationship between Facebook and the news media industry is increasingly complex, requires context, and has room for improvement, according to a new report released today by the International News Media Association (INMA).  The 79-page report, “The Facebook-Media Relationship Status: It’s Complicated,” offers an executive-level overview of how the social media giant intersects with news publishers as of late 2016.

The report cites Mark Zuckerberg’s widely-reported remark that Facebook is not a media company, but rather a sort of Uber for the content industry. In other words, Zuckerberg believes that because his company doesn’t create content, it isn’t in the content business. However, as the report points out, from content aggregation to distribution and myriad “editorial” decisions (be they algorithmic or human), the distinction is blurry at best.

The report attempts to help better define Facebook’s role in the ecosystem as well as examine the market position of all of its platforms (Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp.) It provides an overview of major social media usage trends and patterns worldwide. And finally, the report takes a hard look at Facebook’s complicated relationship with the news industry (including a deep dive into the way in which its News Feed algorithms work), and analyzes different strategies that media companies use with regards to Facebook in an effort to help others do so strategically.

Among the takeaway’s from INMA’s report:

  • Software really is eating the world.
  • New technologies make traditional market-entry barriers disappear.
  • Value propositions are no longer defined by the industry but rather by customers and their changing needs. Thus, user experience becomes a competitive advantage.
  • New business realities blur distinctions between partners and rivals.
  • News media consumers no longer form a mass market but rather networks of individuals.
  • Users are flooded with content. News has become a commodity.
  • Data is becoming the new oil.

As Emily Bell pointed out in a recent Columbia Journalism Review article, “Facebook is being taken somewhere it never wanted to go.” Yet, while it may not have sought to be a pivotal media cog, the report points out that “clearly, Facebook needs to be a thoughtful partner to the news media industry — and vice versa. That is a partnership that should be based on transparency and mutual support.”

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Innovation

Experimentation explodes the boundaries of powerful storytelling

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There’s a whole lot of talk about content these days, but the bottom line is that great storytelling is what elevates mere information into the stuff of conversation, inspiration and maybe even viral sensation. The newest addition to the roster of DCN’s member’s-only gatherings—Powerful Storytelling—offered a morning filled with examples of just that. And while it was our first event to focus squarely on the more creative aspects of the business of content, it bore the hallmark of all of our events: DCN members provided candid insights into the strategies and creative process behind the content that people love.

Though the content itself, and the insights proffered, were far-ranging, one major theme emerged: the importance of experimentation. While most storytelling fundamentals remain constant, distribution channels, devices, and consumer preferences are among the many factors in near-constant flux. Certainly, that poses challenges. It also offers opportunities and the creativity the speakers highlighted showed a universal spirit of experimentation—in organizational structure, partnerships, and use of emerging tools—to better connect with consumers.

NYT_DisplacedThe day started off with Jake Silverstein, New York Times Magazine Editor-in-Chief, presenting their early forays into virtual reality. Silverstein encourages experimentation with the medium because of its ability to enable viewers to feel empathy by literally seeing through the eyes of a child refugee, for example. And while one audience member noted that virtual reality (one of the most hyped storytelling mediums du jour) lacks some of the qualities that make text so evocative such as the sense of smell or setting a larger context for a story, Silverstein emphasized that VR offers a whole new way to experience a story.

CR_PaulsChoiceConsumer Reports Executive Director of Content Gwendolyn Bounds said that experimentation is an essential piece of the transformation the brand is currently undertaking (which begins to roll out next week with a new logo and aesthetic enhancements on both its website and in the November issue of the magazine.) She says they are trying a number of new story formats, including unique social and mobile content, and 360-degree video—one of which puts users into the driver’s seat of CR’s lauded automotive test process. Further innovations will emerge when the brand moves to a “membership” model in coming months.

In a crowded landscape, Bounds points out that content brands need to experiment in order to find the right way to make their storytelling distinct. She also said that it is important to continually test the types of content that their consumers will “give them permission to address.” In the case of Consumer Reports, an example was its “A Beautiful Death” package, which focused on the many aspects and issues surrounding consumers’ choices around end-of-life issues.

“Experimentation is critical” at Business insider, according to recently-promoted Editor-in-chief Alyson Shontell. In addition to testing out short synopsis-style recaps of long-form articles and captioning slideshows and videos on the images so they can be consumed without sound or accompanying text, she said they’ve also been playing with multiple headlines/versions of a single story. “If you have someone who says 12 different things that could be headlines, we break it out into short takes that may collectively get far more views.” And why not?  “Because a digital publication should have its own set of rules” not follow the path of television or print.

FT_FortunesKicking off his talk with images reflecting the Financial Times’ historic love of the text-dense page, Data Visualization Editor Alan Smith said he has found a great willingness from the FT and its staff to experiment with ways in which data can be transformed from mere line- and pie-charts into an in-depth storytelling medium all its own. To do so, you need to truly understand what the data is really about and then he said you can play with presentation so that “graphics take on a life of their own” and can effectively communicate far more than numbers: what those numbers really mean to those involved in the story and to those reading about it.

Certainly, one of the day’s most enthusiastic champions of experimentation was Mike Yapp, Director of Google’s YouTube in house agency, The Zoo (pictured, top). He believes that content is becoming increasingly “liquid” and that it is constantly being transformed by the users themselves. Thus, Yapp said “writers and designers need to think more like inventors” in order to create content ready-made for increasingly malleable, immersive and experiential consumer experiences.

MarsNoting that the first wave of virtual reality content innovation created experiences were just for one person, he said that future innovations will include shared VR experiences. For example, his team worked with Lockheed Martin to create a VR experience for children who collectively experienced a VR visit to Mars while riding on a school bus together. The goal was not simply to push the bounds of VR from single-user experience to one that is social, but to employ innovative storytelling to ignite the minds of children so that they can go farther than ever before.

For the Creative Director of The Independent Journal Review, Benny Johnson, experimentation drives the site’s entertaining (and often irreverent) news coverage. When asked how he gets politicians such as Marco Rubio and Lindsay Graham to participate in creating such viral hits as “How to Get Revenge with a Football” and “How to Destroy your Old Cell Phone,” Johnson said “we’re in a special time where politicians from the highest levels to local levels are experimenting with how to engage the public” and, he said, content companies should too.

Yet Johnson expressed a point that also recurred throughout the day: Technology is a storytelling tool, not an endgame. “You need to do more than express the fact that your company has the technology,” he said. It is essential to tell a story so powerful it transcends technology.