Since its founding, Digital Content Next has been at the forefront of emphasizing the importance of brands as proxies for trust and advancing the future of trusted news and entertainment.
We share this message about trusted digital publishers with policy makers, advertisers, and the public. We share how the trust DCN members’ brands have built – both their reliability and integrity – is critical to their on-going relationships with advertisers and consumers. And today, we also share that message through an innovative new way – through the trust.txt framework.
What is trust.txt?
The idea is disarmingly simple.
Trust.txt is a machine-readable text string that enables any web-crawling robot to easily understand there is a relationship between DCN and our members who also choose to install a trust.txt file on their sites. The concept will be familiar to anyone familiar with robots.txt or the more recent ads.txt. Scott Yates, founder of JournalList.net is the caretaker of the trust.txt framework, along with a few members of his non-profit board.
This simple idea helps to solve a long-standing challenge: Research has repeatedly shown that membership in DCN is a clear positive signal of trust to the industry, press and others. However, that “trust signal” is not actionable for social networks, search engines, programmatic ad networks, researchers and others that wanted to transact only with trusted publishers. Over the years, platforms, agencies and advertisers have asked us to manage lists of trusted publishers however we’ve always been concerned those lists would be too narrow unless they recognized the entirety of the media ecosystem – not just DCN members. And that’s what the trust.txt framework does.
In support of this framework, DCN has placed a small text file on our website. You can actually look at it here.
We recommend that all of our members install a similar file. It’s easy. And, significantly, it signals that the trusted publishers that do so have a relationship to DCN. It confirms our association with each other in a decentralized and secure way.
Why do this?
As you likely know, DCN has consistently expressed concerns about how Google and Facebook have undermined the power of brands to serve as proxies for trust. We’ve held their feet to the fire in many ways. But they do have one valid excuse for why they do not send more users to more trusted publishers: They don’t have a way for their web-crawling robots to see that trust relationship. The same can be said for automated advertising systems and brand safety filters begging for automated inclusion lists.
What they need are machine-readable signals that they can plug into their algorithms. With trust.txt they will have that and their last excuse for why they don’t more prominently feature trusted digital publishers evaporates.
When these trust.txt tags are on more trusted publishers’ websites, DCN will have a new way to hold the platforms accountable. We’ll also be able to use it with new and emerging advertising systems to encourage smart ad spending on trusted content creators.
Trust us
Members of DCN: I encourage you to install your own trust.txt file. The instructions to do so are here. I also encourage you to join JournalList.net, a member-owned cooperative that manages the whole system. It also means that Yates, the founder of JournalList, can help you get your trust.txt file built and installed.)
DCN is pleased to be the first national organization to sign up for JournalList, and we encourage every other membership organization to start using this tool right away so that the network effect of trust will be visible as quickly as possible. The framework was built as a starting point that is truly open and available to all. DCN is, and will be, only as trusted as its members. The same holds true for any other membership, whether it be a new coalition or an organization that has stood the test of time like the Associated Press.
The last few years, and especially the last few months, have provided stark evidence that the underlying problems that plague society are made worse when the information ecosystem is weak. It’s time to strengthen our digital infrastructure with trustworthy information, We are hopeful that trust.txt is another powerful step in the right direction.
A lot of mobile app developers are looking toward March and sighing something along the lines of: “It’s been fun, but the salad days are coming to a close.”
As promised in the iOS14 update, Apple will begin enforcing the user consent requirement for apps to share its Identifier for Advertisers (aka IDFA) in March. This was delayed from September; however, it’s been a dark cloud rapidly approaching for anyone advertising or monetizing in the mobile app space.
IDFA was a giant boon to mobile advertising. Arguably, it kick-started in-app programmatic by enabling cross-app targeting and measurement for advertisers similarly to the way third-party cookies function in browsers. While third-party cookies are (reportedly) hitting the end of the road in 2022, Apple’s IDFA will live on. However, advertisers, adtech companies, and publishers alike are pessimistic about the percentage of users who will opt-in due to a rather negative permission window from privacy-centric Apple.
Unfortunately, those developers may get hit with a double whammy. They face severe revenue loss and a storm of malvertising and malicious ads taking advantage of a drooping programmatic marketplace and mobile vulnerabilities.
Publishers’ incessant mobile troubles
Mobile has been a long, hard road for digital publishers. As more and more of their traffic creeped over to smartphones and tablets during the last decade, publisher revenue opportunities dwindled. Less screen real estate was available to show display ads, visitors scrolled by impressions at warp speed, and the available formats not only failed to satisfy advertisers, but also alienated audiences.
And that was before Apple’s Safari, the most widely used mobile browser in the US, introduced Intelligent Tracking Protection (ITP) and cut off third-party cookie support. Eventually, Apple plans to put even tighter restrictions on first-party collection.
At AdMonsters Publisher Forums, ad ops professionals described their mobile web environments like ghost towns. “Oh yeah, the advertisers know that iOS users skew more affluent and that we have solid first-party data segments. But they won’t bite without client-side measurement capabilities and attribution.”
Scammers step in
No surprise then that the scammers saw a weak mobile programmatic marketplace and came to play. The current age of ad quality challenges started with omnipresent mobile redirect campaigns. For a while in 2018, it seemed like every weekend you could be greeted by scam announcements that you’d won a gift card if you dared to brave the mobile web.
And their interest in compromising mobile users has only grown. The biggest named malvertising threats of 2020, including LuckyBoy and IcePick, used fingerprinting to pinpoint mobile devices.
Late 2020 and early 2021, The Media Trust saw a dramatic rise in malicious ads on mobile devices. (And when we refer to an incident, we mean a specific malvertising campaign; the amount of infected impressions is exponentially higher.)
Malicious advertising on mobile—web and apps—skyrocketed at the end of 2020 and beginning of 2021.
As Pat Ciavolella, Digital Security and Operations Director at The Media Trust, explained on a recent webinar, “Mobile is a juicy target for bad actors…. Most people access the Internet through their mobile devices and malvertising is harder to detect. Malicious actors are starting there to make sure their code is working before expanding onto desktop and reaching anyone and everyone.”
A significant slide in in-app programmatic CPMs—due to unidentifiable or unmeasurable traffic— will simply open up new testing grounds for malvertisers.
Double whammy
So, the enforcement of consent for IDFA—with Apple messaging that’s likely to dissuade users from opting in—couldn’t come at a worse time. As noted elsewhere, even rosy opt-in predictions could have devastating consequences on app developers’ revenue. We know because we’ve seen how advertisers pull out when users are unidentifiable and unmeasurable on Safari. (On mobile and desktop).
And when benign advertisers step back, we’ve then seen how the malevolent ones step forward. A simple examination of the rise in malicious advertising during the early days of the pandemic is enough to set your hair on end. An explosion in supply with lowered CPMs is a scammer’s paradise. The scam opportunities around Covid will once again hit fever pitch as bad actors try to capitalize on vaccine distribution.
Rise in malicious advertising detected between Jan. 2020 and April 2020—the beginning of the Covid pandemic.
App developers face a dual threat. First, the are likely to see a serious drop in revenue as in-app programmatic CPMs decline when users fail to opt-in to IDFA-sharing. And then a host of bad advertisers will try to infect their users with malware or rope them into some kind of scam.
As tempting as it may be to send the programmatic bid floors to the basement, app developers – and mobile publishers in general– have to keep their guards up against malvertising. The must also demand better protections from their upstream demand partners. It’s never been more important to scan and track where bad ads are coming from.
In the long run, infecting your users with malware or a credit card skimmer could have far worse ramifications than a revenue shortfall.
There is a lot that the OTT and publishing industries can learn from each other in terms of acquisition strategies. With a bit of adaptation, each could improve customer signups in unexpected ways.
Ultimately, both industries focus on selling content direct to consumers. And there is significantly more crossover than there would have been 10 years ago, as video and online media have become the most common form of content consumption. OTT Market growth is expected to grow by 14% in 2021 and new digital subscription orders rose 420% in 2020 against the previous year. This provides the impetus for organizations on both sides to take advantage of this period of continued growth, and many of the strategies of one industry can be adapted and applied to the other.
Key Takeaways
Physical and digital provisions are no longer silos in themselves, and are forming parts of a more unified strategy
Payments and subscription dates can be disconnected for greater flexibility
Offering the ability to pause subscriptions rather than cancel outright can reduce churn
Bundling products together to form more focused packages can be more enticing than the all-you-can-eat approach
Streamlining registration and payment journeys is critical to maximizing conversion
Free content
A common strategy in the publishing sector is to provide a certain amount of content for free. This might be a limited number of free articles, or content types/genres that is free to unregistered customers. Meanwhile, in OTT and SVOD, the general rule is to have content locked behind a paywall or have all content available for a limited free trial period. This is a commercially restrictive “all or nothing” approach.
An alternative value exchange would be to provide a metered registration wall. In this way, you offer customers the ability to watch selected content for free in return for creating an account and sharing their personal details.
For services that do not provide a free trial, this can help entice new customers who get the opportunity to see the quality of the service. For churned customers, it is an opportunity to bring them back in. It also generates an opportunity to increases customer loyalty through other strategies.
Subscription holidays
A common scenario within the publishing sector, particularly those publishers that operate physical delivery, is where customers wish to “pause” their subscription for reasons such as going on holiday, or a financial decision. These customers do not want to churn. In this “subscription holiday” approach, access and payments are paused for a set length of time agreed by the customer and the provider.
OTT, on the other hand, is either active or inactive. Customers who need to make this decision must typically cancel their subscription and then remember to reactivate. Once churned, they may choose not to come back at all. There are some services, particularly sports services such as BT Sport and Sky Sports, which offered to pause subscriptions in part of 2020 due to a lack of sports events. In the case of BT Sports, the payments could be halted, or donated to the NHS. Other sports-based OTT services offered payment holidays to their customers during this time.
For OTT Sports, this is helpful for retaining customers who would otherwise churn in the off-season. Instead, customers can be at ease knowing their subscription and billing will only be active when they need the service.
Product bundling
Bundling is the process of combining multiple products and offering them in a single package. Using customer data insights and personalization solutions such as Zephr, businesses can get clear insights into the reading and viewing habits of their customers.
This data can be used to identify products that often perform well together. Then, those products can be offered in a package to the customer dynamically as an acquisition incentive. For publishing, this could be discounted access to certain articles based on topic, a group of magazines, or relevant discounts on third-party services. For larger OTT providers, this can be access to specific categories such as kids shows or movies.
Express registration and checkout
Netflix offers a model example of easy signup. Provide an email address and password and the customer account is ready. Amazon and Now TV both have simple sign-up pages to get customers viewing their content quickly. The key element is reducing the amount of personal data collected at the point of sign-up. The typical registration flow will offer email and password, or Social Sign On. Long signup forms are rare in the OTT space.
Publishing can stand to learn from this lesson: Customers expect as frictionless a sign-up process as possible. Where metered registration walls are used, it is a good idea to put the single sign-up process in a prominent place, using SSO and email/password only.Ensuring the registration and payment appears on a single page also reduces time and friction, which can increase acquisition rate. Publishers and OTT providers based in the European Economic Area (EEA) should also be aware of regulations around Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) and factor customer identity checks into their billing journeys.
Best of both
Acknowledging that content does not have to be an all or nothing approach. Using data to personalize offerings and create bundled content tailored content is a great way to win signups from customers.
Physical and digital are no longer separate silos but are both key parts of the acquisition strategy. The popularity of video only continues to increase and is now the expected content format of any brand. The lines between OTT and publishing are continuing to blur. So, organizations that learn from this shift in expectation early stand to see major gains in customer acquisition.
With billions of dollars transacted on metrics that didn’t exist a few years ago, precision and rigor in detailed measurement matter more than ever before. Yet connecting and rationalizing fragmented data across multiple channels remains one of the most significant barriers in advertising. This poses a pressing challenge when considering the unpredictability of this past year and how it has impacted consumption habits.
To deliver a successful cross-channel strategy, marketers and publishers require special insights about how to precisely measure the impact of advertising attention and optimize consumer experiences. It requires unifying all views of prospective consumers in the TV and digital landscapes.
Here are three insider tips that enable you to unify your view:
1. Monitor cross-platform saturation to avoid ad overload
The struggle to achieve visibility goals has flummoxed the most-savvy professional. This is in part because of the historical barriers to measure fragmented data regarding de-duplicated frequency between platforms. However, it is essential to span the measurement gap to ensure that activation strategies align with measurement capabilities. However, you would be surprised as to how often this falls short. For example:
Marketers and publishers deliver on valid and viewable as the de facto standard. Yet reach and frequency are often being measured without this crucial filter in place.
When campaigns are delivered, particular audience segments are curated across 1st and 3rd party datasets. Yet measurement of that performance is based on demographic buckets that only roughly align to how your campaign was carefully targeted.
With the growing evolution and consumer adoption of connected TV (CTV) programming, it’s apparent that there’s a significant opportunity to access valuable audience share. Still, it’s challenging to unify your CTV strategy with the remainder of your digital and linear advertising approach. And this leaves you blind and unable to advance.
No one wants a wasted ad budget. Instead, leverage measurement solutions that enable detailed analytics of all ad buys across all households to work for you. They can help pinpoint hurdles or make inflight changes while the campaign runs. This degree of analysis on any-time intervals across a digital and TV portfolio will also help you develop best practices for future campaigns.
2. Pinpoint inefficient ads to untangle cross-platform performance
How can you tell when ad waste occurs? This question undoubtedly plagues our ad tech industry, which faces epochal changes. Consumers encounter ads, even when they are off-target audiences. And relevant ads hit the same audiences ad infinitum. Learning to pinpoint inefficient ads and untangle cross-platform performance allows you to identify how much you spend efficiently sending real messages to real people.
Sophisticated cross-platform measurement solutions provide tools to measure trillions of impressions across TV and digital–and stop bad actors in their tracks. For example, the teams at Moat by Oracle recently uncovered StreamScam, characterized by forged household IP addresses, app IDs, and device models to make it look like ads were playing in digital environments when they weren’t.
Note the following industry-wide digital ad expenditures for reference:
20% serves to bots only—and never end up on the screen
20% serves an empty room
25% serves inattentive viewers
30% serves digital, 40% TV
10% serves a saturated audience
3. Unlock sophisticated audience relevancy
With the constant evolution in ad tech, sophisticated audience relevancy means something different now than it did even five years ago. With new and emerging channels, platforms, and technologies, reaching the people you care about and in a cross-platform capacity is both more important, and in some cases, more daunting than ever.
Today we know that people have, on average, six devices from which they consume media. All of those devices present a fundamentally different engagement experience and are all vying for our attention.
Let’s be honest, when it comes to reaching people, a one size fits all approach rarely fits the bill. Relying on imprecise definitions measured only by age and gender audiences is one clear example of potential constraints. Focus on finding better alignment with your campaign goals. This requires more inclusive data on audience interests, family structure, past purchase behavior, and more—compared to a national industry-recognized baseline.
Held virtually and expanded to five days, the 2021 edition of the member’s-only DCN Next:summit (February 1-5) was certainly unlike any that came before. Fittingly, CEO Jason Kint kicked things off by reflecting on all that has changed over the past year and, perhaps more importantly, what has not.
“Publishers have been covering three of the biggest stories of our generation, all intersecting at the same time,” he said. “Your ability to stay true to your brands and to the public trust, despite personal and professional obstacles, has been remarkable.”
Amid all of this, Kint reminded attendees that the industry will need to keep its priorities straight to fuel a stronger digital media marketplace. Indeed, a broad theme of the event was the many ways publishers are adapting to shifts accelerated by the pandemic by deepening their direct relationships with audiences.
Platform power plays
Constellation Research founder and chairman Ray Wang expanded on that topic in the opening session, an interview by BBC correspondent Larry Madowo. Noting increased competition from outside the industry, Wang called for greater cooperation among media companies.
“What we have is a fracturing in the marketplace, which is making it very hard to compete with the digital giants,” he said. “In order to succeed, you have to band together.”
Sara Fischer in conversation with Mathias Döpfner
Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner told Axios media reporter Sara Fischer that the “immensely powerful position” of tech platforms will need to be addressed by regulators. At the same time, he shared an optimistic outlook for the future of journalism. Unlike the print-centric business he took over 20 years ago, digital journalism carries lower costs, he said, allowing media companies to invest more heavily in editorial.
“You have no deadline. You have unlimited space,” Döpfner said. “And you can combine all aesthetic forms of journalism. It can be video, it can be audio, it can be text, it can be all combined. I think we are still in the early days of digital journalism and its creative potential.”
Monopolies and media models
Döpfner added that there’s a future for both subscription- and ad-supported journalism on the web, and that many organizations will continue with a mix of both. The future of advertising, however, depends on the role of platforms.
On the contrary, NYU marketing professor Scott Galloway said the key to survival for media companies will be subscriptions. He said that giving content away for free to “innovators and algorithms” was “the biggest mistake journalism ever made.”
Interviewed by Henry Blodget, the CEO of Axel Springer-owned Insider Inc., Galloway added that regulators should further address platforms’ data collection capabilities to mitigate their harmful effects.
POLITICO antitrust reporter Leah Nylen and Yale economist Fiona Scott Morton then explored potential regulatory remedies to the anti-competitive practices of tech companies. Scott Morton encouraged media companies to help educate regulators on the impact of “dominant advertising intermediaries,” such as Google.
“These markets for digital advertising are not something that most people understand,” she said. “It requires effort on the part of the affected parties to help move the conversation forward and push regulators in a direction that’s good.”
The pivot to paid
Meredith Kopit Levien in conversation with Peter Kafka
The subscription economy took center stage on Friday, when Recode senior correspondent Peter Kafka interviewed newly promoted New York Times CEO Meredith Kopit Levien. Pushing back on the notion that the Times was becoming too dominant a player, Kopit Levien suggested that the organization is helping to create a market for paid journalism.
“There’s plenty of room for other digital journalism outlets to survive and thrive,” she said.
“We’re still in the early days of the pay model. It wasn’t that long ago that everybody said things like ‘digital news wants to be free.’ Some of our journalistic competitors are having great years for subscriptions. We look at all of that as making a market.”
To build on the 2.3 million digital subscriptions the Times sold in 2020, Kopit Levien said the outlet will be investing in covering live and developing news. Additionally, she suggested that publishers should work to reduce their dependence on third-party data to help create better digital experiences for subscribers.
Meeting audiences whenever, wherever
CNN chief media correspondent Brian Stelter sat with CBS News president Susan Zirinsky for a discussion on how the pandemic has accelerated shifts in the TV news business. Gone are the days of holding major scoops or interviews for primetime, Zirinsky said. Even broadcast news must adapt to a 24/7, cross-platform model.
“We want to give people facts,” Zirinsky said. “We want to share information. This is really what it’s about: being on every platform that is available, taking our unique content and putting it in as many places as a consumer is.”
Peter Kafka in conversation with Jenna Weiss-Berman and Lydia Polgreen
One of those rising platforms, audio, was the topic of conversation between Gimlet Media head of content Lydia Polgreen, Pineapple Street Studios co-founder Jenna Weiss-Berman, and Recode’s Kafka.
While advertising remains a lucrative source of revenue, Polgreen said the medium needs some advancement in terms of measurement and audience-based selling, similar to other formats. Weiss-Berman added that the mechanisms for connecting ad buyers with content creators need development. Both agreed that there is still tremendous room for growth. The next big challenge will be reaching people who don’t currently listen to podcasts.
“If you look at the research, podcast listening has tripled since 2014, in terms of share of time, but only from 2% to 6%,” Polgreen said. “In a world where audio is completely on-demand, the possibilities are pretty endless.”
The future of media and journalism
Elsewhere on the program, Snap CMO Kenny Mitchell and Clubhouse CEO Paul Davison each explored growth strategies for their respective platforms. They also touched on the importance of creator relationships and the intersection of content and community.
Julia Angwin, editor-in-chief and founder of The Markup, took attendees behind the scenes of The Atlantic’s highly successful COVID tracking project. Staff writer Alexis Madrigal, who co-founded the project, reflected on the many challenges involved in merging numerous disparate sources of data to meet a critical need for information in the early months of the pandemic.
Angwin noted that the project exemplifies the tangible benefits that journalistic endeavors can provide to the public, particularly when providing information that might be “politically inconvenient.”
Web Smith, Jarrod Dicker, and Stacy-Marie Ishmael
On the final day of the Summit, Stacy-Marie Ishmael, editorial director at The Texas Tribune, led a lively conversation with 2PM Inc. founder Web Smith and The Washington Post’s VP, commercial, Jarrod Dicker, on the future of media. In line with the trends, the discussion largely focused on the rise of independent creators.
“Twitter and other platforms have enabled individual people to build their own reputation. It’s created an entirely new landscape,” Dicker said. “Creators can see what their individual value is. I think that’s a change in the discourse.”
New year, same values
In closing, Kint said that, despite adapting well to a virtual event, he hoped to see everyone back in Miami for the 2022 DCN Next: Summit. In the interim, he advised those in attendance to focus on three key things: strengthening bonds with audiences and partners, understanding the core needs of both, and emphasizing agility in response to change.
“Every member of DCN has a direct and trusted relationship with their users and advertisers,” he said. “Our Summit is the one place where, in the comfort of a closed-door environment, surrounded by others who share our values, we can also share our successes and vulnerabilities.”
Covid-19 hit some sectors of the media industry hard (live sports, concerts and trade shows). The global entertainment and media industry saw its largest revenue decline in more than two decades. However, the pandemic has also presented an opportunity for companies embracing digital strategies that are aligned with consumer trends and expectations.
Disney, for example, lost over $6 billion in revenue from the closure of its theme parks. But Disney+ reached 50 million subscribers worldwide two years ahead of schedule. In January, Fortune – once just a print magazine – announced its redesigned website, an immersive video hub, and other premium offerings. All of this strongly positioned them strongly to counteract the advertising slump that hit the industry last spring. In October, the company launched Connect, a membership community and online platform for purpose-driven, mid-career professionals.
Here are three trends we’re likely to see this year:
1. The relationship with the content consumer matters more than ever.
Cookies were a convenient crutch. They were the building blocks for digital advertising and helped drive revenue for media companies as they transformed. Now that cookies are nearing their end, some companies are panicking while others are evolving. The ones that succeed will be the ones that focus on creating a continuing relationship with the consumer. This means engaging with them differently, through a soft or hard paywall, or as a curated member experience (e.g. Fortune Connect). This not only preserves advertising, which is a significant source of revenue, but opens the door to new, diversified revenue streams.
The ultimate death of the cookie will turn out to be a blessing for the media industry, even if it creates disruption in the short term. Necessity drives innovation. The cookie’s demise will revamp the way companies post content and interact with their consumers. In 2021, we will see even more innovative media business models that will define the coming decade.
2. Pandemic-driven changes won’t revert.
There is no going back, so let’s embrace the change. Let’s highlight some of those changes. In the first 28 days on Netflix, The Queen’s Gambit was watched by 62 million households. No, it didn’t reach M.A.S.H. season finale numbers of 106 million. However, M.A.S.H. aired on a major broadcast network at a time when there were only a few.
We’ve seen an acceleration in media companies following in Netflix’s footsteps. Peacock is betting on a network show that first aired in 2005 – The Office – to drive premium subscriptions at $5 a month. Who is the largest audience for that show? People who aren’t old enough to have worked in an office.
Just as the music industry needed to evolve and find new ways to engage and monetize consumers when streaming took off, so must media companies. Experiments bringing what would have been blockbuster movie releases like Mulan, Soul, and Wonder Woman 1984 to Disney+ and HBOMax will forever change, but not completely destroy, the theater industry. (Alamo Drafthouse-like experiences may well be the theater experience of the future). And let’s be clear, the definition of media is evolving. Consider Peloton: a fitness company? Sure. A hardware company? Maybe. A media company? Absolutely.
Successful media companies aren’t embracing a move to digital. They are disrupting their own legacy business models to become digital. Spectator events have become intimate digital experiences. (Think DJ D-Nice spinning to 120,000 live viewers including Diddy, President Joe Biden, and Janet Jackson on IG Live in the early days of the pandemic).
Sporting events are better with fans in stands. However, sporting experiences can, and should be, complemented with connectivity to the players, drivers and coaches. Leagues have already embraced fantasy sports, but could they openly embrace sports betting? And are there opportunities to connect with online gaming to create a full-surround fan experience, digitally?
It is critical to focus on the consumer and how they consume and where they consume and providing new ways to consume – directly. This will create new and stronger revenue opportunities.
3. Legacy media companies can succeed. But they have an uphill climb ahead.
Legacy media companies have the most to gain from transformative change. However, they start at a massive disadvantage compared to new media companies like Complex Networks and Spotify. (Yes, Spotify particularly with the acquisition of podcast content companies such as Gimlet).
These brands and what they represent have lasting value. However, they demand reinvention with a focus on digital channels, habit-forming digital products, multiple streams of monetization and libraries of content. When Maven bought Sports Illustrated last year, it did so with the intent of “revitalizing and strengthening” the publication for a new era by focusing on technology.
Past the tipping point
A recent McKinsey report noted that Covid-19 has “pushed companies over the technology tipping point.” Media companies that want to succeed will have to rethink their digital business models in 2021. And they have no time to waste.
While most software products were once developed on a 6-to-12-month timeline, the pace of change has accelerated. Consumer expectations are far more immediate. But with the right digital product strategy, the media industry could see a game-changing resurgence in 2021.
About the author
Chris Hansen is senior vice president of 3Pillar Global’s media and information services client service vertical.
Since Covid-19 closed offices everywhere, the workplace has changed beyond recognition. Home working currently accounts for than more than two-thirds of economic activity in the U.S. Now, about a year in, employees have settled into a routine of working from their bedroom, office, or kitchen. And managers have found new ways to communicate and engage with their staff.
With the pandemic normalizing remote work, the question is: Will we ever want to work in an office again? According to research, 55% of US workers want a mixture of home and office working. Liz Vaccariello, Editor-In-Chief of Real Simple at Meredith Corporation agrees that hybrid is the best option.
“All remote, all the time is not healthy, especially in media, where the creative process needs to happen in person,” says Vaccariello. “But as a creative lead, I don’t see the need for office hours to be Monday to Friday, nine to six. It’s just inefficient. Twice a week is good enough!”
Many businesses are considering this hybrid option and starting to think about a long- term model. So, what lessons have been learned during lockdown that we can take forward into this next phase? We spoke to industry experts at Complex Networks, Meredith Corporation, and The Financial Times to find out.
Communication pro tips
“The pandemic has put a focus on intentional and clear communication,” says Krystle Douglas, VP People & Culture at Complex Networks. “So, think about what it is you are saying, how you’re saying it, and how it’s received.”
While Slack is great for keeping in touch with your team and dealing with daily duties, you need to make sure you take the time to personally reach out to individual staff. “I’ve been checking in with everyone by calling them every two weeks,” says Vaccariello. “A phone call feels more intimate and it makes us feel more connected. This is even more true than when we were in an office together, where I was around, but not always available. Additionally, I personally mail each person a note about each issue, mentioning a story they worked on, or how they contributed.”
Surveys are also a great way to communicate, as the anonymity enables employees to freely express their opinions. The Financial Times (FT) regularly surveys their staff. Since lockdown Kirsty Devine, the company’s U.S. Head of HR & Global Project, says they have been targeting questions around well-being and working from home.
Be empathetic
According to Vaccariello good communication starts with empathy. “Managers need to empathize individually and thinkabout each member of their staff and what they need,” she explains. “For example, when dealing with my younger team members, I think about my 22-year-old self. I ask: How would I be feeling?”
Douglas agrees that empathy is key to ensuring people interpret messages the way you want them to be received. “We are all busy, but you have to pause and pay attention. Everyone is dealing with a lot right now, but not everyone is ok with sharing it,” she states. “It’s about being more thoughtful in how you reach out and connect with people.”
Empathy doesn’t come naturally to everyone. However, according to research, it can be taught. The FT provides training and coaching on how to supervise staff according to their situation.
“Empathic leadership has never been so important, but not all managers are used to it,” says Devine. “In the office you can read body language. But with people working remotely they need to ask questions about how people are doing and not just brush off the response, which some people are uncomfortable with.
EMPATHETIC LEADERSHIP TIPS
The mindfulness app Headspace offers the following advice for empathetic leadership:
Look: Check-in with your team and look for the unsaid. How are people’s energy levels?
Listen: Give your team space to be open and honest about how they feel, both mentally and physically.
Feel: Taking the time to acknowledge how someone else is feeling empowers us to respond with kindness.
Respond: In times of high stress, it’s easy to let frustrations get in the way of skilful communication. Pause and give yourself space to respond in a kind way.
Flexible hours and expectations
With empathy comes an understanding of how people choose to manage their working day. This can be particularly important if they have other responsibilities, such as home schooling.
“Nine to five is out the door,” states Vaccariello. “Working during this pandemic is just about getting work done when you can.” You have to trust your staff to get their work done, at a time that fits in with their home life.
Giving them more autonomy, rather than constantly checking they are online, will cultivate a culture of trust, respect and ultimately hard work. “The work will speak for itself,” says Vaccariello. “If a team member can get their work done in five hours, good for them!”
Less can be more
The downside of flexible working is finding the “off button” at the end of the day. “The commute served as the emotional shoulder of the day,” explains Vaccariello. “You would read the paper on the way in to prepare for the day, and a novel on the way home to switch off. But now we have no practical or emotional boundaries. So, we work longer hours.
“Meredith may get more [time] out of us, but I don’t see it as a benefit. I want employees with a healthy work-life balance. if they spend 12 hours a day looking at a screen they are going to burn out, and that’s not good for business.”
It’s up to management to supervise their staff and ensure they aren’t working all hours. Real Simple has a “no meeting” policy on Fridays, so people can set their own hours and focus on creativity. Complex Network has Mental Health Friday, where the office is closed every other Friday.
Monitor mental health
It’s also up to management to keep any eye on their team and watch for signs of mental health problems. Of particular concern are employees who live alone because work is their main source of interaction. Research by TotalJobs found that 46% of U.K. workers have experienced loneliness during lockdown.
There are a number of things you can do to support staff, from offering virtual therapy sessions, to providing in-house mentors. The FT already had a network of employees with mental health training in place. Devine says they have been a great source of support during lockdown. The newspaper also offers an employee assistance program (EAP), which provides independent, confidential counseling and support 24/7. Plus, they offer to pay 50% of a Headspace subscription.
“Since lockdown we have also introduced five wellness days, which are paid days where staff can take a break to get their head together,” says Devine. “And we provide resilience training on how to manage yourself in a remote environment.”
Team building
No matter how much support you offer, nothing can replace the bonding and benefits of sharing office space. “Journalists in the newsroom are itching to get back to office. They miss those moments of serendipity, when they are working on a story and bouncing ideas between desks,” says Devine.
Without those watercooler moments, Vaccariello says you need to find new ways to kickstart a conversation for your teams – especially with new staff members. “We can’t grab a beer or have a welcome bagel party. So, to make new staff feel part of the team we play games on Webex. Or we go around and have everyone say something about themselves, such as a book they’ve recently read.”
Complex Networks has a similar system, set up by Douglas, called Complex Coffee Talks, where different staff members talk about their professional and personal lives. “I wanted to find a way to keep morale high, but also provide a learning experience, so that all employees understand what everyone else is doing,” Douglas says. “Because understanding is the route to empathy, which builds a stronger, happier workforce.”
While Covid has caused chaos around the globe, there is no doubt that some positives have come out of the pandemic. Workplace flexibility is one of them. It can increase productivity, decrease stressful commutes and save money on office space and travel expenses. But the key to successful remote working is good management and consistent support.
“It’s all about empathy, communication and understanding,” says Douglas. “You need to be in tune with your team, so listen and pay attention.”
A fundamental shift has occurred in the past year: Publishers experienced a fortuitous combination of increased audience size and engagement. Many publishers are considering how to balance subscription marketing with ad monetization in order to take advantage of new readers and higher engagement.
In a recent survey, 53% of publishers experienced an increase in engagement with their email newsletters during the Covid pandemic. Email is taking on a new role in nurturing these relationships and maximizing their value. Much like retailers, publishers can leverage email as a path to conversion.
Rethink the “customer” experience
Executives are rethinking many parts of their business in light of the pandemic’s silver lining of higher engagement. And with third party cookies under imminent threat, publishers have both a challenge and opportunity with how to collect insights about visitors to deliver value for advertisers and drive business operations effectively.
One way that publishers can take better advantage of their new engagement opportunity is to collect more data. They have an opportunity to more effectively test and integrate new revenue opportunities by approaching their digital business the way a retailer approaches ecommerce. Many publishers have discussed adding commerce opportunities to their models, such as The New York Times’ addition of Wirecutter to their portfolio. However, for many publishers, the concept needs some direction.
Often, the best work across publisher initiatives is done by connecting experiences between the website, search, and social media. Unfortunately, email remains a relatively static, separated channel. Retailers would be shocked to know that publisher email is frequently bifurcated between content-based newsletters and transaction-based messages about subscriptions with little coordination between them. Email is a hidden opportunity that will help with many 2021 publisher goals.
There are many strategic and tactical improvements that publishers can make to better orchestrate channels to achieve their goals. And these improvements have already proven successful in ecommerce. The multichannel retail experience includes data collection and segmentation, intricate channel orchestration, a dedication to measurement and analytics, and sophisticated testing and personalization with email and SMS. These channels must work together seamlessly to serve to engage, connect, and communicate.
Mapping the “customer” journey
A loyal reader has a particular series of actions that they will, pretty predictably, take. They might visit the site every morning. Or perhaps they open their mobile app every evening as they hang out on the couch. A search-driven reader might have another set of behaviors. They might averaging 30 seconds on the page, with a possible second article before abandoning the site.
These various user profiles are essentially different “customer segments.” Each of these offer their own set of value opportunities and paths to conversion. Many publishers have already created segmented strategies and content personalization. However, multichannel revenue-driven marketing, including email, usually takes a back seat. This reduces the ability to re-engage, offer deeper personalization, and drive conversion.
Retail tactics to learn from
Publishers have more in common with the ecommerce experience than they may realize. In fact, several established ecommerce best practices can be repurposed for publishers:
Browse abandon
Retailers will often trigger a personalized email when someone abandons a product search. Publishers can do the same, tracking everything from scroll depth to which search terms drove them to the site. By testing segmented triggers to bring different readers back to the story, or to similar or different stories, publishers come across as more relevant and more interesting.
Cart abandon
Similarly, retailers will trigger a personalized message via email or SMS to remind people of what’s in their cart. Publishers can do the same with event and subscription signups, or with articles saved for later reading.
Interest-based triggers
Every time a consumer reviews a product, or clicks on a link, that information is gathered to improve personalization and triggered messaging in the future. This information, be it driven by content behavior or more transactional behavior, should be collected by publishers to build richer user profiles and to inform segmentation and marketing actions. This data is also hugely valuable for editors seeking to better understand reader interests.
Live content
Retailers used live content during Black Friday/Cyber Monday to drive interest in sales, manage inventory. Streaming content showing employees explaining products, and influencers discussing health tips, drove engagement and sales. Publishers can imagine incorporating everything from breaking news and live entertainment to real time interviews and podcasts.
Channel optimization
Email is only one element of a multichannel communication strategy. It’s best to test within and across channels to understand how to get people to stay engaged based on their preferences and habits. For example, testing the success of driving engaged readers on mobile web to download the app, or transitioning engaged mobile app readers to in-app messages and push instead of email, can help publishers meet readers where they are without any friction. SMS can take things one step further for brands that don’t have standalone apps but cover breaking news, the same way many D2C retailers alert shoppers about sales.
Bonus points
These five common triggers in a retail strategy also serve another purpose: to test messages and collect more data. Adding triggers along the customer journey doesn’t just provide opportunities to re-engage, they make businesses smarter. Combining insights and measurement across different parts of the business can help speed up learning. Personalizing different elements of the customer journey can help speed up conversion.
Content is the product that many publishers focus on, but it’s the readers (aka customers) that will deliver insight and revenue. By turning focus toward the transactional touchpoints along the reader journey, publishers will find more chances to increase their insights and improve their performance. Retailers may have more measurable ROI. However, what retailers have spent years learning through testing can now serve as a reliable blueprint for publishers.
About the author
Allison Mezzafonte has worked in the media and publishing industry for 20 years and is currently a growth consultant, as well as a Media Advisor to Sailthru. A former publishing executive for Bauer Media, Dotdash, and Hearst Digital, Allison serves as a strategic partner to media clients.
