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Featured Post | Revenue

The Economist on the value of consumer research

The Economist is an industry leader when it comes to subscriptions innovation: Last year, they paved the way in audio by paywalling all but one of their podcast portfolio. The Economist’s multi award-winning Espresso app has been used as a blueprint for other publishers looking to offer a sample of content behind a cheaper paywall.  Earlier this year they also launched the largest brand campaign since the early 2000s in a bid to attract younger readers.

What binds these initiatives together is a strong consumer research team. In addition to brand building and surveying about new initiatives or products, this team is also involved in almost all aspects of the organization, from retention efforts to optimizing its growing B2B business.

The Economist’s Global Head of Consumer Research Seema Hope believes that this is a function more publishers should be seriously considering to optimize subscription efforts. There is real value to be gained in getting to know audiences on a deeper level, even for those without paywalled products.

Getting to know consumer research

Hope’s Consumer Research team is one of the few which has ongoing communication with readers. “We get a lot of dialogue through editorial; people write in,” she noted. “But that two-way conversation is where we come in, and we take that really seriously. We’re there to represent what consumers are saying, and it’s our job to be frontline and independent on that.”

The team is made up of a mixture of disciplines, from UX and design to data and research. Hope firmly believes that it is more important than ever to bring these together rather than operate in silos. “You want to make sure that you’re understanding everything about the consumer, not just the way they’re interacting with a product. You want to understand their needs and motivations,” she explained.

This does add a layer of pressure on research teams to specialize in multiple methodologies. But Hope has seen this be advantageous for careers. Her team has people who are strong in UX, qualitative research and talking to people, as well as experts in qualitative and statistical methodologies. As consumer researchers, being able to operate across all of these means that they can work more effectively with teams across the business, from product to consumer marketing. “We touch nearly every aspect of the organization. And that can only get wider,” Hope said.

An internal and external independent voice

One reason the consumer research team at The Economist is so effective is because they believe in taking stakeholders on the research journey with them. “We won’t just deliver a project and say: ‘Here you go,’” Hope said, explaining how they anticipate any resistance to findings. “We start in partnership with them, working out what the objective is, what the business challenges are. Then our job is finding the right methodology to get them to a deeper understanding.”

Most of the projects the team are involved with are “quite iterative, with constant dialogue,” so findings aren’t a surprise. Hope also outlined that her researchers are often embedded in other teams while a project is ongoing so that everything is transparent. For example, if a consumer has made a statement about user experience in a video, that video is shared with the relevant people in The Economist’s Slack channels.

This perception extends to their interactions with participants, too. “It’s really important that we’re independent when we’re talking to consumers, and we make it really clear that you’re not going to hurt anyone’s feelings [with honest feedback],” Hope said. Constant and open dialogue with customers helps, as does keeping each other’s biases in check internally, with the team ensuring they’re not asking leading questions or putting a spin on data interpretation.

Currently working on growth and retention – once customers are acquired, how do we best keep them, as well as brand perception. Also students and what loyalty means for a news org.

Uncharted territory with Podcasts+

One prominent example of the Consumer Research team’s influence was in  in shaping The Economist’s Podcasts+ program. Last October, the publisher moved all but its daily The Intelligence podcast behind a paywall, offering a separate podcast subscription product.

Planning for this was a challenge as virtually no other publishers had made such a move (and still haven’t!). Many consumers will have never come across a paid-for podcast until they hit The Economist’s paywall. 

The decision to charge for podcasts was one the whole company stood by. It seemed incongruous to have such a significant product available for free when nothing else was? But they had concerns about how audiences would respond. Hope’s team started with needs, behaviors and motivations. This shaped their messaging and approach. 

“It was interesting the way the project evolved. Our consumers were telling us, ‘I can see why you’re doing this. You value your journalism. It’s really in-depth. It’s well-researched. It’s amazing to hear the voice of the journalists in my ear. I feel a real personal connection to this person,’” she explained. “So in the end, our consumers told us the kind of language that we should use when talking to them.”

It took months of conversations and rigorous testing before they arrived at a model that made sense for the publication, as well as one consumers would take up. The Intelligence daily podcast would remain free as a daily touchpoint. However, all other weekly and daily shows would be available for $4.90/month, or as part of the full Economist subscription package.

Hope says that there has been uptake not just of the podcast-only package, but also to the full subscription. One finding that her team were able to pick up was the perception of increased value now that the podcasts were paywalled. “Once you start charging for something, people put more of a value on it. So it’s changed that perception of quality content because they’re now paying for it, and increasing their listening,” she noted. 

Now, their focus is on understanding how to move people along the funnel from free to podcast to full subscriber. Hope’s work is never done; consumer research is an ongoing dialogue as tools, technology and behaviors evolve. “I think it’s naive to think you get it right the first time. It’s naive to think that you stop learning. So we rarely say, ‘That’s the end of a project’,” she said.

Lessons from The Economist’s consumer research

Hope has had over 16 years working in audience research, and firmly believes it’s a role all publishers should have to inform decisions across the business. It’s a role that changes and evolves. “But at the very crux of it, we are, as publishers, curating and creating content for a person,” she emphasized. “If you don’t understand what they’re thinking and the why, what, who they are as people, it’s very difficult to adapt what you’re doing.” 

We may have more data and insights than ever before into our audiences. But this can’t always provide the full picture about what is going on with consumers. To truly create products that audiences not only enjoy, but are willing to pay for, benefits greatly from insights that run deeper than data.  For The Economist – ranked sixth most effective subscriber conversion publisher globally – having a dedicated consumer research team to get under the skin of what really makes their audience tick is clearly paying off.

Featured Post | Innovation

Building a strategic AI innovation plan for your media business

As the technology continues to develop at breakneck speed, publishers are taking every imaginable stance on AI. From The Telegraph forbidding staff from using AI-generated text in its journalism, to Politico actively optimizing its website for generative AI crawlers, a wait-and-see approach is not an option. 

There are still many unknowns around both the use of generative AI technology and the potential legal and ethical implications. So, it is understandable that many media executives are hesitant to take a stance. But in all likelihood, you’ve got staff using it already; one survey found that 70% of workers did not disclose their ChatGPT usage to their boss.

So how can senior leaders work to introduce AI in a way that benefits the organization, or at least empower the experts and evangelists to explore and share solutions? Here, we look at publishers who have created frameworks for experimenting in ways which benefit the businesses, as well as some tips from an innovation expert to help shape your own AI strategies.

“Waddle Inn” at William Reed

William Reed is a data and events publisher focused on the food and drinks sector. They have found success with their “Waddle Inn” project, named lightheartedly after the way ducks and penguins waddle together, with the extra ‘n’ to make it sound “more like a pub,” explained Chief Digital Officer John Barnes. 

William Reed has three locations in the UK, as well as offices in France, Chicago and Singapore, not to mention staff working remotely. So they decided that an online forum would be the best way to bring  everyone together. They set up a Microsoft Teams group composed not just of techies and experts, but also those who are new to AI, intrigued, or even frightened by it.  

“Whatever your starting position is, here’s a group where you can come together.” Barnes explained. “We use it to share articles, pose questions to each other, we use it to discuss and come up with ideas. It helped form our AI statement… What’s come out of it is a whole series of ideas, some of which we’re working on, some of which we’re still debating, and some of which we’ve just put a spike through because it was too crazy to even contemplate!”

A year on, the Teams group has now become a “record” of William Reed’s AI journey. Barnes noted that some of the ideas they discussed when it first started now seem “less crazy” given the speed at which the AI landscape is developing. “It’s such a useful social resource that seems to be well-liked and well-attended,” he said. “It’s very, very active.” 

Immediate Media’s AI experimentation days

Magazine and special interest consumer publisher Immediate Media have found that offering staff events focused on AI has driven experimentation and innovation. They started off with an AI Immersion Day in the summer, which Roxanne Fisher, Immediate’s Director of Digital Content Strategy said was about setting a level playing field of understanding. 

“We had a morning of keynote speakers come in and talk about things like the ethical implications and the opportunities, and we also had our CEO stand up and say, ‘This is what we’re doing with AI, and this is what we believe we shouldn’t do,’” she explained. “Then in the afternoon we had really hands-on workshops about prompting, ChatGPT, basic frameworks, Midjourney and how to decide what the right tool is for your use-case.”

But they didn’t just leave it at that. To encourage practical outcomes, Immediate then set up an AI Experimentation Days where they asked staff to submit projects that they might want to use AI for. From over 70 submissions, they took forward 27 projects to work on a hackathon-style event.

“The experimentation days were really useful because people were getting to work on something they had submitted, and were quite excited about,” Fisher said. “But also we had expert facilitators going around the business for the two days. So, if you got stuck…we had people to give really good prompting tips.”

The days were seen as a success by staff as well. Fisher noted that having no expectations around experimentation or productivity gains really helped take the pressure off. Although they’re planning more days in the future, she acknowledged that they’re now working on ways to build the outcomes into the business more strategically. “The experimentation is going really well, but building that into a process or ways to use these tools on a regular basis that’s really meaningful is more difficult,” Fisher said. 

Have a clear company-wide generative AI statement

Plenty of publishers have put out statements and policy guidelines to clarify their approach to AI tools over the past year or so. This shouldn’t be seen as a frivolous exercise or a PR move; both Barnes and Fisher noted that publishing clear, public guidelines have really helped reassure staff, as well as provide a framework for internal experimentation.

“If I hear somebody in our company saying, ‘I’m really worried about AI, I’m going to lose my job,’ I don’t see that as a problem. It’s something I need to try and address so that they, for their own well-being, aren’t feeling frightened and worried,” William Reed’s John Barnes said. “We’re not going to be doing certain things, hence having a statement that’s transparent and published that everyone can see.”

Immediate has also put together their own manifesto for how they will use AI, and have communicated that to staff. “The first thing we wanted to do is be really clear in the business what our stance was for using it; what we would and wouldn’t do,” Fisher explained. “We really want to stay up to date and understand it, and understand how it’s going to change everything, but we also want to really maintain the trust of the brands.”

For Fisher, it was important to put guardrails and rules in place for experimentation. This includes basics like not putting personal or sensitive data into tools, but also ensuring staff feel secure. “We did a lot of psychological safety work around it, and tried to make sure people felt they could have the conversations and be really honest about how they’re feeling about it,” she said. “But also lots of reassurance and having that clear stance of what we did and didn’t do was helpful. It set out to people that we’re not about to churn out hundreds of news articles or anything. That’s not what we’re about.”

Lead AI innovation from the top

The success of AI initiatives like these are heavily predicated on support from senior executives. Fisher found that, at Immediate, early encouragement to try and use the technology didn’t take off until more structure was provided.  “We realized that the testing and usage needed to come from [the leadership team] more,” she explained. “So we were more prescriptive with people about what we thought they should test.”

Immediate now has an “AI champions board” of people from different disciplines around the business who are passionate about, or interested in the technology. This helps galvanize others. It also means that there are recognized representatives staff can go to with ideas or concerns.

Barnes explained that he sees three types of people who experiment with new technologies in a business: the over enthusiastic early adopters, the pragmatists, and those who are afraid they’ll lose their job to it. “You want to rein in the early adopters who are going to waste lots of time, and you want to make sure that the people that are being pragmatic about what it could or couldn’t do aren’t seen as being the party poopers,” he outlined. 

But AI policies and strategies aren’t something that can simply be delegated out to someone else. Media consultant Ian Betteridge, who has worked in leadership positions at publishers like Bauer and Dennis, says that it needs to come right from the CEO. “Firstly, you need to understand this new technology,” he said. “You need to understand how it impacts your ways of working. Because quite often, when it gets to a certain level, everyone just assumes that everybody else knows, or everybody else can just find it all out themselves.” 

This means going through several change management processes. “You’ve got to run, as the CEO, a change management process with your executive team,” explained Betteridge. “They then have to run the change management process with the senior leadership team…and they then have to run it with the broader business.”

While that’s going on, media leaders have to “stop people just going off and doing it themselves.” “You’ve got to put guidelines in place from the off,” Betteridge advised.

That doesn’t mean media leaders need to understand the technical detail, or every use case. “But we need to understand it to a point to be able to say to people, that’s not possible, or how to help them unlock things,” Immediate’s Fisher emphasized. “One of the biggest things that people in leadership can do is actually just get hands on with it… therefore you can make sure what you’re asking people in the company to do is realistic and reasonable.”

“Somebody on the leadership team that is looking after digital in some way, shape or form needs to own [it],” Barnes echoed, noting that it can’t simply be delegated to the IT team. “And if they’re not able to lead it on their own, they need to put a group of people around them from their teams or from around the company that can own it.”

Get your AI experimentation going

Some publishers will have teams and individuals eager and ready to experiment with AI. But for those at organizations with leadership teams who are more cautious about the technology, there are still ways to get things moving. 

For organizations without strategies in place or a willingness to experiment,  “the best way is to always just be able to share results. That’s the thing anybody sitting at the top is going to care about,” Betteridge advised. “So if you can share results and say, we’re now getting five exclusives and more traffic through there, then that matters.”

Barnes suggested simply talking about it as a way to get things started, even if full understanding isn’t there yet. “You want to make sure you’re working within the law, you’re doing something that isn’t going to damage your brand, you’re using tools in the right way to be efficient but not at the expense of humans,” he said, noting that these are points most leaders can agree on.

Whether organizations choose to appoint a board, hire or earmark individual champions, or bring everyone into the conversation, AI is not an issue media leaders can afford to stay silent on. It is a given that there are people within nearly every media organization using generative AI tools in some way. While you might not hesitate for staff to use Grammarly, you’ll likely feel quite differently about using ChatGPT for research or writing. Therefore, it is not only critical that you get started, the impetus and innovation need to start at the top with clear leadership driving smart experimentation. 

Featured Post | Innovation | Perspectives | Revenue

Harness the power of generative AI to develop winning revenue strategies 

Throughout my career, I’ve cultivated a deep appreciation for the practice of bookmarking articles and posts. This practice has enabled me to amass and retain knowledge across various subjects, whether it be in organizational oversight, crafting revenue strategies, or exploring financial management.  

I know I’m not alone. We all accumulate fundamental wisdom over our careers, enriched by learning from opportunities, technological advancements, cultural shifts, and environmental events. In the ever-evolving news and digital media industry, preparing for the unexpected is crucial, requiring us to understand how and when to adapt effectively. 

Recently, an epiphany has reshaped my perspective. What if I could synthesize and apply the wealth of knowledge I’ve amassed throughout my career, the content I’ve diligently studied, and even the articles I’ve saved and bookmarked in one seamless strategy? This introspective journey led me to a profound realization about generative AI, enhancing my perspective on its potential and application. 

Initially, the concept felt theoretical, but it soon revealed its significant potential. I envisioned harnessing generative AI to amalgamate career-spanning learnings into practical revenue strategies. Thoughts of organizational structures, compensation plans, mission statements, value propositions, close ratios, and DMA strategies flooded my mind.   

Theory and practice

However, I must note that this is not something that would only work for me or another individual. It suggests an approach that has the potential to revolutionize the way digital news organizations operate, paving the path for a new era of data-driven decision-making, innovation, and growth while also representing a paradigm shift that could reshape the competitive landscape, ushering in a more efficient, agile, and forward-thinking business environment.  

By harnessing generative AI’s power to synthesize accumulated knowledge and adapt it into practical revenue strategies, organizations can streamline their approaches, enhance innovation, and excel in a rapidly changing environment. 

Consider an example of a hypothetical organization aiming to boost advertising revenue in a specific designated market area. Generative AI—armed with local business data, industry insights, and demographic information—can be used to draft strategies suited to the organization’s unique characteristics and needs.   

It might also be used to help craft strategies tailored to specific circumstances, leveraging real-time and historical data. For example, it can be used to systematically flesh out specific details regarding go-to-market strategies, revenue planning, or quarterly and annual goals and break them down into weekly and monthly output objectives in an organized format. These sorts of applications demonstrate the possibility for generative AI to help media organizations shape their futures. 

Generative AI is a rapidly developing technology with the potential to revolutionize the way we develop and execute strategies. While it is still in its early stages, the evidence of its practical applications and case studies is undeniable.  

Responsible use

Of course, it is important to caution that any theoretical or draft strategies developed by leveraging generative AI should be well vetted and assessed among peers and committees. Not everything that generative AI suggests should be implemented, and you should not disregard your instincts and experience-based reasoning. However, the evidence of its potential is clear. Neglecting the potential of generative AI for strategy means potentially missing out on invaluable insights and efficiency gains.  

Like knowledge, generative AI is a tool. And both must be leveraged effectively, in the right hands, with the right guidance to have a positive, significant impact. If you’re considering or hypothesizing about how generative AI may be leveraged within your organization, consider first establishing a guiding North Star mission—a central theoretical outcome that offers purpose and direction beyond mere intentions.  

From there, generative AI can then be leveraged to create or enhance multiple distinct revenue strategies, consolidating them into one comprehensive approach. This AI-driven approach allows for the crafting of specific prompts that guide generative AI to execute precise tasks, all aimed at achieving the overarching goal. 

Generative AI’s ability to tailor strategies to specific circumstances and prompts could be a game-changer in the world of digital media revenue strategy. It may provide a level of precision and adaptability that isn’t always readily available, especially for startups.  

For example, a senior vice president of sales or a chief revenue officer could create a prompt requesting a step-by-step plan to increase EBITDA by 5% and achieve an annual advertiser account and revenue growth of at least 10% would utilize every available dataset and avenue effectively. With this information, you can further clarify and expound upon the North Star mission. This means breaking down goals and objectives into tangible, actionable terms, and translating improvements into practical implications for your organization.   

Practical application

While I can only provide a high-level summary of the most important results and insights from my theoretical exercise, it’s important to note that everyone’s needs and circumstances will vary. For instance, when I created a North Star strategy for a made-up organization and expanded it, I received hypothetical guidance on achieving specific revenue goals. This guidance encompassed expected percentages and insights based on the data used in my prompts.  

Viewing it from a startup perspective, I prompted generative AI on CPM, pricing structures, and product offerings strategies. Generative AI provided valuable input, considering margins, commissions, and salaries. It also offered industry-specific advice and recommendations for advertising in the area specified. Additionally, it provided insights into salary expectations for sales and editorial staff, vital for an organization’s growth, and suggested strategies to increase website traffic and expand our audience base.  

Reflecting on this experience, I found the process valuable for my strategic thinking. What stood out was that the information’s quality hinged on the input. To utilize generative AI effectively for strategy, understanding its limitations, investing time in learning, and acknowledging the input’s importance are crucial. Proper training, domain expertise, and adaptability are key in determining generative AI’s value for less-experienced users in news media or any field.  

Act wisely

Generative AI is already transforming various industries, including digital news media and startups. Through interactions with news organizations of all sizes, I’ve realized that despite naysaying to the contrary, our industry is abundant with innovation, enthusiasm, and focused development. We’ve heard a lot about its use for content creation. However, generative AI can uniquely contribute to streamlining and illuminating the process of uniting innovative ideas, creative concepts, and revenue-generation strategies into one cohesive overarching strategy centered around a clear organizational objective—a guiding North Star for long-term industry sustainability. 

While larger companies often have ample data resources, startups and organizations at different stages may not. And every organization can benefit from streamlining knowledge-based processes. Generative AI can be a powerful tool to guide decision-making and provide insights that may otherwise be elusive.   

I encourage you to take small steps. Experiment and pivot with the wealth of information and ideas at your disposal. Let your imagination run wild. It’s time to transform our knowledge into a deployable strategy, as the potential awaits exploration. This journey is just beginning, and collectively, we are all in the process of discovery.   

Featured Post | Perspectives

Succession: 5 ways to ensure a smooth leadership transition

This month sees the return of one of my favorite TV shows: Succession. The HBO series focuses on the internal battles at a fictional media organization as the children of its aging patriarch jostle to take over. Though imaginary, its characters and storylines could be ripped directly from the headlines, and numerous media and business dynasties have been cited as inspiration. Showrunner Jesse Armstrong refuses to name names, though, telling Variety, “there’s loads of succession stories to draw on.”

That’s the truth. Changes in leadership, and the departure of long-standing founders, are definitely not just the stuff of Emmy-winning dramas. Everyone has experience with this. Unfortunately, this experience is often “shit-tastic,” says Amy L. Kovac-Ashley, author of the News Executive Leadership Transition Guide, which was published last week by the Reynolds Journalism Institute. 

Because changes in leadership are inevitable, it’s an area all media companies need to face head-on. So, how can they improve their succession planning and processes for organizational change? With that in mind, we spoke to Kovac-Ashley – Head of National Programs at the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, – about her research and some of the transferable lessons from it. 

5 principles for smooth leadership succession

Here are five principles and behaviors that media leaders and organizations should put into practice. 

1. Take time to reflect 

The best leaders are self-aware, says Kovac-Ashley. They know what they want and what their organization needs. Ideally the two are aligned. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. Pace of change, and the speed of day-to-day operations, means that individual and organizational priorities evolve and shift. 

Yet it can be hard to recognize this, given the constant “urgency and crisis” that many media leaders contend with. “We don’t take enough time to reflect and think and sit in the quiet to really make good decisions,” Kovac-Ashley says. 

As a result, it’s important to make time to step-back and evaluate. “I think that a lot of individuals have a hard time doing that. [So] you get founders or others not providing what the organization needs, because they haven’t had the time to reflect on their own contributions.”

Once they carve out the time, there are several mechanisms to help leaders tackle these big personal and organizational questions. These instruments include reflecting on your own drive and motivations, harnessing performance evaluations and checking in with trusted friends and advisors. Executive coaches can also play a valuable role.

2. Acknowledge leadership needs can change

The continued transformation of the media landscape means that the best leader for a company at one point in time is not necessarily the right one for the future. You might need new skills. Or a leader might find they are no longer firing on all cylinders. 

Again, this is an area where self-awareness is a strength good leaders possess. In this case, that means “knowing whether what they are offering, and doing, is what the organization needs at this point in time and [in] its development,” Kovac-Ashley says.

Operational health and organizational longevity require this type of reflection and analysis. On occasion, leaders must accept they may not be the best fit for their company anymore. After all, as Kovac-Ashley reminds us, in a lesson applicable to leaders everywhere, “no one wants to tell the founder, it’s past time for you to be here, right?” 

In those circumstances, “people have to kind of get out of their own way and out of the way of the organization when they realize it’s time to go,” she says. Whatever happens, “the best outcome here is that you have a smooth transition,” Kovac-Ashley contends. 

3. Start by planning for emergencies

It doesn’t matter what your business model is, leaders will always come and go. The universality of this reality means that Fortune 500 companies, family owned, non-profit, legacy and alt-media outlets alike all need to be thinking about this issue and taking steps to prepare for whenever change comes.

Knowing where to start may seem daunting, so Kovac-Ashley recommends planning for emergencies. “Because an emergency can happen at any time,” she says, “as we all experienced during Covid.”

This means preparing for the unpredictable: a sudden death or health crisis (either of a leader or a member of their family), and “because somebody is being removed because of poor behavior.” 

“Emergencies can come in a lot of different packages,” Kovac-Ashley explains. To help organizations prepare for these types of unforeseen circumstances, her guide features a detailed list of worksheets. These cover areas such as designating a temporary success, and operational areas such as personnel, governance and finance. She’s also “eager to know what’s missing,” and encourages DCN readers to reach out with suggestions and recommendations for improvement.

The need to capture this type of information is particularly important at a time of increased remote working, she notes. It’s especially valuable in the early days of a company when systems and processes can be embryonic and often only understood by one or two people. Transparently breaking down – and sharing – workflows, ownership and processes can also break down organizational silos, Kovac-Ashley says, as well as enable systems to work better. 

4. Don’t rush to find a replacement 

Too often people want to rush to find a new CEO or other leader, and that may be a mistake. “Scrambling isn’t going to get you the best outcome,” Kovac-Ashley says, instead urging organizations to pause, rather than hiring too hastily. 

The board – and the organization – require time to evaluate their needs and explore a range of options. That might mean hiring an interim head, or exploring opportunities to implement a co-leadership model – approaches that are typically underutilized across the media industry.

It might also mean ascertaining if a leader really needs to leave at all, or if some “time out” is what’s needed, rather than a departure. Sabbaticals aren’t common in the media industry, and they’re not a panacea, but they are an effective part of academic or religious professions. These are fields Kovac-Ashley believes that the media can learn a lot more from. 

Avoiding dashing headlong into hiring also matters when organizations are trying to diversify their leadership too. Failure to do so may make it harder for these new, more diverse, leaders (such as women and people of color) to succeed. Pausing can avoid “essentially giving them an organization that’s broken and saying ‘you fix it’,” Kovac-Ashley says, “when that’s completely unfair.”

5. Involve your staff throughout

To help leaders see the full organizational picture, Kovac-Ashley recommends performance evaluations incorporate 360-degree feedback. These “can be really helpful for people who are willing to actually listen to their staff,” she says. “Hopefully, they have created an environment in which their staff feel they can be honest about what’s working and what’s not.”

And when leaders depart, she advises that personnel from across the organization are involved. “I have a very strong point of view about this, that maybe others won’t share, which is fine,” she says.

As part of this, Kovac-Ashley advocates listening sessions with staff and incorporating them in the interview process. That doesn’t mean giving them veto power over an appointment, but ensuring they have input. 

“Once you start to get into finalist candidates, I think one or two people from the staff, depending on the size of the organization, of course, need to be part of that process,” she advocates. And “I also think staff need to be more involved in the onboarding of new executives, because a top-down approach in onboarding does not bode well, for good culture.”

Looking Ahead: why everyone must start preparing for change

The need for succession planning will only grow, Kovac-Ashley believes. Just as the Great Resignation has seen many people re-evaluating what they want from the world of work, it’s also triggered a spike in similar reflections at the C-Suite level. 

Kovac-Ashley notes how leaders at organizations founded at the start of the Great Recession (such as Politico, The Texas Tribune, and award-winning local site VT Digger) have recently stepped aside. Many of these founders have moved on to new opportunities or decided to retire. The Covid crisis was often cited as the tipping point for making these life-changing decisions. 

These moves have been accompanied by further personnel transformations across other parts of the industry. Mergers and acquisitions, for example, have meant leadership changes in multiple media organizations. Alongside this, founders frequently discover that their passion lies in the start-up phase rather than managing a more mature business. That can be especially true for younger leaders. 

“A lot of younger founders don’t necessarily want to be there for 30-40 years,” Kovac-Ashley says. “They’re really excited about starting something… and getting it on to a good footing, but… they might want to go on and do something else.” 

This issue is not going to go away, either. “Every single organization that’s launching today is going to have the same issue going forward,” Kovac-Ashley reminds us. “And because of the way the industry is changing, there’s going to be more and more smaller entrants trying to figure out how to sustain themselves beyond their founding stage.” 

Leadership transitions can be tumultuous times for organizations. However, change is inevitable and succession planning is a critical process for all publishers. From emergency planning to encouraging leaders check in with “their personal board of directors,” there are clear tips and guidance to help media companies prepare and to ensure they don’t need to start from scratch.

This matters, because many of the factors that prompted Kovac-Ashley to explore this topic look set to continue. Covid has refocused many people’s work-life priorities, and leadership changes will only be further triggered by continued M&A activity, lay-offs, (overdue) conversations about burnout, and a greater focus on issues of mental health and well-being. 

As a result, the need to plan for leadership changes and manage effective transitions, are areas that no media organization – large or small, new or established – can afford to overlook. 

Featured Post | Perspectives

The future of the newsroom post-pandemic

After nearly six months away, staffers at the Annapolis, Md.-based Capital Gazette came back to the office on Labor Day. However, they weren’t there to return to their desks. Instead, they came to reclaim their belongings, bidding farewell to their newsroom and vowing to continue covering the local community despite the loss of a local office space.

The Capital is one of five Tribune Publishing-owned papers whose newsrooms will soon be permanently closed. The company is evaluating its real estate needs “in light of health and economic conditions brought about by the pandemic,” a Tribune spokesperson told the paper last month, noting the high levels of audience engagement the Capital has achieved since March.

In lieu of a replacement office, Tribune will provide Capital employees with workspace at sister title The Baltimore Sun, about 30 miles north of Annapolis, when that paper’s offices reopen next year.

Lost without newsrooms

While news typically doesn’t happen in newsrooms, offices still play a vital role in news organizations. This lesson has only been underscored in recent months, said Pamela Wood, a Maryland state politics reporter at The Baltimore Sun who previously spent 13 years at the Capital Gazette.

“I find that the biggest problem is coordination among reporters and editors,” she said. “You can’t just shout across the newsroom.”

In a constant stream of phone calls, Slacks and emails, communication is slower and prone to challenges. Further, Wood says the loss of the newsroom has a particularly adverse impact on young reporters, who benefit from simply sharing workspaces with veteran colleagues.

“I’m worried for our young journalists,” Wood continued. “There’s a lot of learning that goes on just by observation. It’s so much easier just to ask a question of somebody. When you’re alone in your kitchen you lose a lot of that. And I think that’s to the detriment of the news organization.”

Adapting to the times

Media companies across the board have been forced to adapt to remote operations. At the same time, they are faced with a historic economic crisis that’s gutted advertising revenues. So it’s not a surprise that Tribine is not the only one to consider reducing its real estate costs.

Just last month, Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch informed staffers that “remote work will be a larger part of our future workforce strategy,” as the company seeks to renegotiate its lease at One World Trade Center. Skift, a B2B media company covering the travel and hospitality space, opted not to renew its lease on its Manhattan headquarters in July.  CEO Rafat Ali estimated that the move would save the company $600,000 annually.

The Charlotte Observer, a McClatchy-owned newspaper, fully vacated its headquarters over the summer and won’t be finding a new office until at least 2021. President and executive editor Sherry Chisenhall said that while there will never be a replacement for a physical newsroom, the pandemic will likely prompt the organization to take a more flexible approach to workspace moving forward.

Permanent displacement

“I know that there are some companies or newsrooms that are rethinking whether they ever need an office again,” Chisenhall said. “I don’t think Zoom calls can fully replace what it means to work together. But I think the time where the office is the home base is probably over. We know that our job is to publish stories that are relevant to the community and to grow an audience that sees enough value in our journalism to pay for it. I think we can actually do that really well without saying that people have to work 40 hours a week in an office.”

Like Wood, Chisenhall said communication has proved a challenge. In particular, newsroom leaders need to be more conscious than ever of their employees’ wellbeing.

“We have to look out for each other in ways that we never had to consciously do before,” Chisenhall added. “It’s not as easy to know who needs to take a break. It just always feels like we need to do more to make sure we’re staying in touch with people.”

The future of the workplace

The non-profit ProPublica, a national outlet by nature, has long operated a network of reporters based around the country in addition to more formal offices in New York and Chicago. That setup, coupled with the occasional need to publish stories on weekends, meant the editorial side of the company was already well suited for remote work, according to president Richard Tofel. For him, it remains unclear what a large-scale return to in-person work might look like.

“My personal hunch is that we’ll end up with a smaller office with many more conference rooms, a lot of hot desking and a configuration that permits that. But that’s just a guess,” Tofel said. “Our business depends on attracting talent, and part of attracting talent is giving people an environment that maximizes their chances of doing good work. I think we’re going to have to learn about what that means as we go.”

The ease of the transition from an office to remote work varies from person to person, Tofel said, acknowledging that work-life balance is a concern. But Tofel added that feelings of being overburdened are more likely the result of covering multiple relentless news cycles than an inherent symptom of operating remotely.

“The result is that people are working unbelievably hard, and harder in many cases than is sustainable,” he said. “We try to emphasize to people the importance of taking time. Where we can slow things down, we do.”

Flexing flexibility

Despite the challenges, rethinking the function of the office and perhaps adopting a more relaxed approach to attendance could benefit employees in the long run, Chisenhall said.

“It would be great to be back in a situation where we could have space for a weekly staff meeting and to do the things that are easier and better to do in person, but not have this expectation that this is where you are by 8:30 every morning,” she said. “If untethering from an office helps people in this business improve their work-life balance, that could be a big plus that we come out the other side with.”

Publishers, especially those with a national focus, could also stand to benefit from a more distributed workforce that isn’t as dependent on physical offices clustered in large cities, Tofel said. A group comprised of journalists based all over the country, with a variety of perspectives and experiences, can help news organizations see stories and understand problems that they otherwise might miss.

Newsrooms are newsworthy

Wood has other concerns about the loss of the Capital Gazette newsroom. She worries that the lack of a dedicated office in Annapolis could place journalists in dangerous situations as the resumption of in-person activities necessitates more reporting from the field, often late into the evening.

“Now you have a reporter sitting in a car in a parking garage alone with their computer lit up,” Wood said. “Our main newsroom in Baltimore does have space. But it is absolutely not workable for a reporter who is covering stories in Annapolis. It slows us down and just makes it impossible to cover the news in a timely fashion. It’s unacceptable to say these far-flung suburban reporters can just work out of our city newsroom. That’s not a realistic solution.”

Despite his recognition of the advantages of distributed remote teams, Tofel isn’t ready to abolish newsrooms. “We have no intention of doing that. I do think that you need to gather some people very regularly. Top editors and people who run groups are often more efficient and spur more creativity if they are co-located. I’m not prepared to defend the idea that nothing is lost if you don’t have a newsroom.”

Perspectives

Build your future competitive advantage: strategic resilience

Let’s all pause for a moment and contemplate the future of our businesses and the competitive landscape that lies ahead. There is no doubt that these past several months and the uncertainty we are facing have rocked everyone’s world. It’s radically reorganized our expectations and plans, as well as many of our hopes and dreams. And the interconnectedness of our personal and professional lives has never before been so challenging or consequential. How we respond and adapt to this once in a lifetime set of circumstances, as individuals, businesses, cultures, and nations, will irrevocably determine our collective successes or failures.

Rishad Tobaccowala considers this and more in his provocative new series: The Future Does Not Fit in the Containers of the Past. The most recent post, Episode 4, is entitled Strategy. Frame. Light. and Time. In it, Rishad contemplates how we might be able not only to survive but thrive within the new normal that we now inhabit.

What is strategy?

One of the observations that most stands out to me in this series is his definition of Strategy. For Rishad, this is a “future competitive advantage”:

“Amidst these new expectations and changing competitive dynamics what advantage will your company offer? A differentiated or better product? A competitive moat of network effects, scale or some other dynamic? A better experience? Speed and value?”

It is a worthwhile exercise for us to all to contemplate how we view our own company’s strategy. We need to examine our preparedness and define our individual future competitive advantage. If we cannot do this for our businesses and ourselves, then we must be prepared for the disruption that will be inevitable from others who have identified and made a commitment to their future competitive advantage(s). 

Future proof

Companies and individuals who do this and make it a part of their DNA will have become future-proofed. This is not simply because they’ve anticipated what comes next. (Really: Did any of us have a plan for continuing our businesses during a global pandemic. For our children at home, learning remotely. Or for experiencing a national reckoning with social justice?) Rather, it is because they have prepared for uncertainly by creating strategic resiliency enabling them automatically to adapt to unforeseen circumstances.

What is extraordinarily astute about Rishad’s commentary is his choice of words to describe what is often an over-complicated and impenetrable concept. By untangling strategic complexity (the state or quality of being intricate or complicated) he has brought this within our reach and made it accessible to each of us.

Rendering complex subjects into their comprehensible elements is after all the essence of effective communication. And who among us has not experienced the misunderstandings (and the glazed looks that follow) from the increasingly mystifying language used to describe our businesses and what makes our bright, shiny object more brilliant than the previous ones?

The audience knows

If we have learned anything at all from these past months about the digital media ecosystem it may be this: Our audience knows what it wants and needs and will devote more time and attention to the content that provides the most value. This seems a self-evident concept. Yet all too often we’ve seen some in our industry gaming the system via click bait and other lowest common denominator shortcuts. This is not what the doctor ordered during a global pandemic.

The fact is that premium publishers have experienced dramatic growth in the scale of their audiences and engagement in their content. Audience Activated Engagement has emerged as a highly productive monetization model. And increased time and attention on websites has unlocked the hidden value of previously undervalued below the fold ad units.

Duration Media didn’t predict the future when it was launched in mid-2018. However, we understood that our success was going to be predicated on building a future competitive advantage. And given the way 2020 is unfolding, I’d say that this — along with strategic resilience — is something every business needs to double down on.

About the author

Bruce Brandfon is Chief Media Officer of Duration Media. Prior to that he was Executive Vice President of WebSpectator. He was Vice President and Managing Director at Publicitas. Prior to joining Publicitas, Bruce was Vice President of Sales for the Philadelphia Media Network. He has also held leadership positions at Scientific American, Newsweek, and Time Inc. Brandfon is Director of the Board of Advisors at Planet Forward. And he’s an Adjunct Professor of Media Studies at Westchester Community College. He contributes frequently to industry publications.

Perspectives

Inspiration in a storm: three initiatives to help managers cope with Covid-19

Managing a media outlet right now is a job from hell. You’re working from home, maybe for the first time, possibly while home-schooling your kids. The only way you can see to your core people is via a computer screen. And you are trying to steer your business through a financial crisis that is costing thousands of jobs and forcing the closure of hundreds of newsrooms worldwide.

The good news is that resources are cropping up that offer ideas and networking opportunities to help you survive a catastrophic fall in advertising income, sick staff, furloughs, layoffs, and redundancies. These resources can also help you respond to challenges that predated Covid-19 – and will persist after the pandemic – like revenue diversification and product development.

Splice ‘Low-Res’ – a virtual media online check-in

Splice Low Res is one way to keep your networking alive and share ideas on how a post-pandemic media landscape might look. These live webinars are held every two weeks, and are hosted by Splice Media co-founders Alan Soon and Rishad Patel.

Each webinar features speakers and thought leaders sharing insights and answering questions on innovation, financial resilience, and new approaches to raising media revenue. They attract hundreds of editors, reporters and media leaders from Asia, Europe, and the US. They can be joined live via Google Meet or viewed afterwards on YouTube.

“I think our timing was right, because people were recovering from the shock of staying home and not being able to travel,” Soon says. “This gave them an opportunity to connect with people around topics they care about.”

Splice is also running an ongoing global survey of media managers. It has drawn responses from dozens of editors and managers from more than 30 countries. Nearly half say they expect job cuts in the next 12 months.

Soon encourages managers to plan for the crisis persisting into 2021. “The first move should be to assume a 50 to 80 percent drop in revenue over the course of this year. So, you need to build as much financial runway as you can,” he says. “Hoard as much cash as possible. Make sure you’re sending out your invoices quickly, and that you’re chasing up on those. Defer your costs as much as possible. Could you re-negotiate your rent to be paid out later in the year? 

“At the same time, start imagining the new products and services you’ll need next year – including what the post-Covid world will need. And start leaning into that because that’s really going to be a new chapter for journalism.”

The Online News Association’s “Community Circles”

ONA has launched guided conversations to help editors develop detailed strategic responses to Covid-19 and beyond. The idea emerged after ONA’s CEO, Irving Washington, emailed the entire membership on March 19th with two questions: “Are you okay? How can we help?”

Five themes emerged from the hundreds of responses that flooded back: self-care, management and leadership in a time of crisis, covering a fast-moving pandemic, revenue and fundraising challenges, and building and launching projects that still need to be realized if outlets are to stay agile, innovative and viable.

“These are pretty deep questions,” says Trevor Knoblich, ONA’s Chief Knowledge Officer. They include: How do I keep my team engaged? How do we report on coronavirus and not lose track of our long-term focus? What do we do now that advertisers are rolling back their relationships? “These are nuanced and complex questions that might have different answers for different types of newsrooms.”

To accommodate that complexity, ONA created “Community Circles.” These align members with an interest in one or more themes to groups of around 20 people, and assign a host for each group to convene regular online discussions.

Knoblich says the groups use tools like Slack, Google Docs, and Zoom. Beyond that, the conversations have a free rein to share ideas and problem-solve. “At least a third of the groups are looking at making a concrete resource that can be shared, or commitments that they’re aspiring to,” he says.

The first Circles began meeting this week. The program is already oversubscribed, but Knoblich says a second round could open in May. The Circles model is simple to adapt and adopt. And Knoblich says that he’s happy to answer questions if another outlet or organization wants to try something similar.

Fathm: The Distributed Newsroom Playbook

Newsrooms have switched from office-based hubs to decentralized working practically overnight. To help them make a success of this new way of working, the news lab and consultancy Fathm created the Distributed Newsroom Playbook in less than 10 days.

The Playbook contains six straightforward modules with associated toolboxes. They cover such topics as how to manage and train a distributed team, how to design workflows, and editorial structures when most of your staff are working from home, and how to maintain and boost audience engagement. It also includes a section on tools and technologies to support distributed working.

“The Playbook is designed for the type of manager who doesn’t have the luxury of strategic thinking right now, because they’re trying to keep the operation afloat,” Fathm co-founder Fergus Bell Bell says.  “We know that the news industry does quick fixes that end up being the long-term solution. So, we wanted to create a resource that offers a quick fix that will work for the long term. Thus, we limit the number of fixes managers actually need to do.”

The Playbook is designed as a resource you can dip into to drive and support critical decisions. These include issues like “how to run a newsroom when you can’t see or interact with your staff, and let them get on with their jobs at the same time as checking in that they’re okay, and how to respond to issues like sudden sickness and absences.”

Bell says the Playbook has had enthusiastic take-up by newsrooms in Europe, the United States and South America since it was published on April 6th. And the team is using feedback from users to help the Playbook iterate and expand.

Consolidate now to weather the storm

I’ll say it again: It’s a hell of a time to be a media manager. There’s no map for this terrain. The last time editors had to navigate a global pandemic of this magnitude was at the tail end of the First World War, before the invention of television or the internet. But the huge upsurge in public demand for news is a clear sign that communities want and need journalism to survive. In some towns they’re fighting to keep newspapers open.

So, yes, look at cuts and savings. Explore some of the forums for sharing ideas mentioned in this article. Seek and find inspiration. But also look at how you can give your users a clear pathway to help you keep the lights on and stay open.

Check in with them to see if they need products and services that you can provide. Make sure you’ve made it easy for them to subscribe, donate, and advertise. Do what you can to strengthen your relationships with your community, in a way that makes it possible for them to support the survival of journalism through Covid-19 – and beyond.

Perspectives

Creativity in the face of a crisis

It is, of course, folly to try to sugarcoat the current reality of the media marketplace: It ain’t good. And there isn’t a clear path to the other side of what we’re currently experiencing. Heck, even Facebook and Google are expected to contract a bit in the wake of Covid-19. 

But, as one of my long-time collaborators told me last week, “Necessity is the mother of invention, right? Or something like that.” And then we discussed the new venture he’s planning to launch next month. While being sensitive to avoid the appearance of profiteering in the face of a heinous outbreak, here are a few ideas to consider in between video calls.  

Audience isn’t a challenge these days, but staying relevant is

We know that people — both media buyers at brands and content consumers — have more free time these days. We also know are spending more time with media. In large part, they’re looking for diversions from the gloom, doom and incendiary rhetoric that characterizes much of the news. Therein lies an opportunity to strengthen relationships through creative engagement using tactics that have difficulty gaining traction during normal times. Maybe because they require significant audience engagement or unique skills to produce — like surveys, panels, video shorts, and virtual events. There’s a whole new swath of audience available that is normally too busy or distracted. Right now, we can have meaningful interactions and shore up our long-term relationships. 

Most digital properties are underutilized and can benefit from optimization focus

It’s human nature to focus on the new and shiny. Unfortunately, that’s often to the detriment of valuable opportunities right in front of us. Now is an opportune time to do a structured assessment of properties in the portfolio. It’s time to identify opportunities for improvement, and implement them. In general, property tune-ups can yield 10%-30% bumps in traffic and engagement within weeks. This has obvious myriad downstream benefits. And when you’re done with the tuneup, start thinking about those promotional tactics that you’ve been putting off for years. (For ideas, see The other side of advertising: Why publishers need to think more about self-promotion.)

Online media consumption behavior is shifting, opening up new opportunities

Though media consumption is up, there’s no shortage of calls to minimize news consumption and find other things to do, for mental health or other reasons. So audiences are turning to social media and video platforms via websites as opposed to apps — at the rate of 15% or more. Many a bold and compelling digital concept have been squashed over the past decade because it was too difficult to jam into an app that would work on a smartphone. This could be an opportune time to dust off the business plan and get it into production. This is both because of increased audience and also the availability of reasonably priced web designers and developers.

Market shifts underway make it tough to be a niche publisher

If you work in media, the only thing worse than being a big company executive right now is being a small company executive. These factors are not unique to publishing. We know they are wreaking havoc in the travel, entertainment, and manufacturing industries as well, among many others. But the cold reality is that larger companies are in a better position to ride out market fluctuations due to their cash reserves, borrowing power, and contract discipline. And that makes it an opportune time to be on the hunt for acquisitions, greenlight new projects, and aggressively strengthen existing customer relationships and pursue new ones.

The foreseeable future is going to present formidable challenges for media organizations of all shapes and sizes. However, there are aspects of the environment that present new opportunities, too. And shrewd companies will exploit them and come out on the other side stronger. 

About the author

Tim Bourgeois is a marketing advisor who helps brands optimize ROI on advertising, technology and agency investments through media audits and strategy engagements.

Perspectives

A “Publisher’s Survival Guide” for the platform era

Here are some key takeaways based upon my opening keynote at the Digiday Publishing Summit in Vail, Colorado on March 29, 2017.

We all know that we’re in the midst of an ever-changing media environment where threats to our business models are everywhere. The bad news for the industry is that Google and Facebook are a glaring duopoly, digital ad revenue models are under attack, and other revenue streams haven’t materialized at scale.

Believe it or not, there’s hope on the horizon. The digital revolution is really just getting started. Think about this: The transition to digital advertising, with 65% of total budgets still spent on traditional media, has a long way to go. While Google and Facebook may have won Round 1, the real fight is coming up, as $250 billion in brand advertising locked up in TV and print will flood into digital across the coming years. Publishers were built for brand advertising, with great content, beautiful environments and strong, trusted brands. Meanwhile, platforms are showing more and more vulnerabilities due to fake news and environments that aren’t “brand safe.” Publishers can still carve out valuable, lasting businesses, but they need to execute a clear plan.

Here is my 11-step program:
  1. Obsess over differentiation
  2. Become a brand management whiz
  3. Fight (until your last breath) to keep a direct relationship with your audience
  4. Be tough and picky about platform partnerships
  5. Reinvent brand advertising and wean yourself off programmatic
  6. Productize your data
  7. Define the right video strategy for you
  8. Think global, but operate locally
  9. Fragment yourself into as many niches as possible
  10.  Do things that platforms can’t do
  11. Be relentless about talent and execution

I wanted to share my full presentation, which you will find below. With a well-thought-out and executed plan, we can change the current course.

For additional insights, see Digiday’s coverage of Justin B. Smith’s keynote: Bloomberg Media CEO Justin Smith’s publisher survival guide in the duopoly era

Innovation | Perspectives | Revenue

A tale of two legacy brands: The New York Times & Yahoo

We all know the narrative that older media brands are struggling to reinvent themselves for the digital age, while upstarts have the advantage of being “digital natives” with no legacy burden. But what about the older “digital native” brands such as AOL and Yahoo? Looks like they might end up having an even more difficult road ahead.

Take the recent quarterly and year-end earnings reports from the New York Times and Yahoo. While the Times saw strength in digital subscriptions and native advertising, Yahoo struggled to deal with massive layoffs and “digital magazines” that weren’t gaining momentum. While both are considering streamlining their organizations, Yahoo has to take much more drastic measures.

Digital growth at the Times
At the Times, digital-only subscriptions grew 20% from the previous year profits were up nearly 50% from last year’s quarter. Print circulation, meanwhile, decreased by 6.9% for the daily and 4.4% for the Sunday edition, but circulation revenues were up 1.3% in the quarter due to an increase in delivery prices. When it comes to ad revenue, print decreased by 6.6% whereas digital increased by 10.6%. A growing strength, however, is mobile ads, which were up 74% in the quarter, making up 22% of all digital ad revenue (which itself is now 24% of all ad revenues).

CEO Mark Thompson said the Times’ T Brand Studio, which produces sponsored content, has become “a meaningful part of the business,” hinting at its importance in long-term strategic growth plans.

The results came the same day executive editor Dean Baquet sent an internal memo announcing an overhaul of the Times’ structure and strategy. “Does our system of powerful desks help us cover big stories that don’t easily have a home—like climate change and education—or does it sometimes get in the way? We deeply value the craft of editing, but in the digital era should we continue to edit every update of every story at the same level?”

The “desks” he’s referring to are the traditional Metro, National, International and other broadly named desks that help classify Times coverage—and thereby newsroom resources. Baquet revealed in the memo that he had asked David Leaonhardt, a recently named columnist and one of the founding editors of The Upshot, to help him examine the current newsroom structure and any necessary changes.

Yahoo’s retrenchment
Meanwhile, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is feeling an even bigger burden of change, especially in the face of dwindling prospects nearly four years into the job. Yahoo’s loss in the quarter was $4.4 billion because of a write-down from investments that didn’t pay off. Without that charge, the company actually earned 13 cents a share. Compared to Google’s 31.9% profit margin in the fourth quarter, Yahoo’s profit margin was an embarrassing 2%. It’s now planning to close down five offices, and its board announced it was looking at “strategic alternatives” (in other words, a potential sale).

It doesn’t help that one way of streamlining costs—laying off 15% of Yahoo’s workforce—adds to a brain drain already taking place at the company. The New York Times reported in January that more than a third of the workforce has left in the last year, prompting Mayer to approve “hefty retention packages” to prevent people from taking job offers elsewhere. Yet most recently, entrepreneur Arjun Sethi, who helped Yahoo compete in the field of mobile chat apps, announced he was leaving.

Much of the criticism toward Yahoo is that its vision was poor from the start. “It’s very, ‘We’ll try this, we’ll try that, we’ll throw a bunch of money at that thing without a clear, coherent strategy around it,’” Jan Dawson, chief analyst at Jackdaw Research, told the Los Angles Times.

The problem with Yahoo is that its expectations are higher in the digital-native space, having to compete with the likes of Facebook, Google on the platform side and BuzzFeed and Vox on the content side. The New York Times has figured out that an older brand can succeed online with the right revenue mix: mobile ads, native ads, subscriptions and memberships. It’s not going to be easy, but they have certainly built up trust and credibility over the years.

While the ceiling is so much higher for ambitious digital natives, the bottom is so much lower when things go sour.

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