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Perspectives | Video

How video providers can create a compelling CTV ad experience

Audiences can now choose from a veritable buffet of advanced TV channels. Viewers can feast on their favorite shows via broadcaster catch-up services, online social video aggregators, free ad-supported streaming services (FASTs) and Smart TV apps, video-on-demand, and addressable linear. According to the recent Streaming Video: CTV Uncovered 2023 study from  AudienceXpress, 46% of UK connected TV (CTV) viewers surveyed also tuck into free streaming platforms daily to watch content.

So, how can broadcasters and premium video providers ensure the advertising experience captures these viewers’ attention? The latest consumer insights from AudienceXpress reveal current audience preferences to inform best practice; here are the biggest takeaways from the full study.

What’s on the CTV menu for UK audiences?

Understanding viewing habits is imperative for premium video providers when creating their content offerings. Almost U.K. CTV participants in the AudienceXpress study, for instance, state they watch more free ad-supported streaming platforms than live broadcast TV. To capture this audience, some broadcasters are diversifying their business models to include different platforms and models.

Viewers appear to prioritize accessing premium content over using specific platforms or channels; 59% of UK CTV audiences surveyed tune in to free on-demand platforms, including FASTs, when nothing on traditional TV channels grabs their interest. While these ad-supported advanced TV platforms are rapidly gaining traction among viewers, it is important to note that the AudienceXpress study also found that broadcasters’ live TV (37%) and catch-up services (35%) continue to attract a significant proportion of viewers, reaffirming that the main driver of platform success is content. As such, media buyers are looking to connect with viewers across all touchpoints, with advanced TV channels enabling them to drive incremental reach and capture the attention of elusive audiences.

Sharing personal data leaves a bitter taste for many viewers

According to the Streaming Video: CTV Uncovered 2023 study, only 26% 26 U.K. respondents with a CTV screen are comfortable sharing their personal data with brands in exchange for more personalised TV advertising. Data sharing seems to be on top of mind for U.K. viewers. (This could possibly be a ripple effect from major web browsers’ removal of third-party cookies.) Although this shift does not impact the TV and premium video advertising ecosystem directly, it requires media owners to keep privacy-conscious viewers front of mind when refining their advertising operations.

Audiences’ views on data privacy will continue to shape the future of premium video advertising and many remain cautious about how their data is used. For this reason, TV and premium video providers need to uphold audience trust. They can do this by being transparent about data practices. They must also clarify why advertising is critical for making premium content more accessible to video-hungry viewers and for funding new, quality productions, as well as leveraging data to cook up a compelling and relevant advertising experience.

With that in mind, which elements of advertising resonate best with U.K. CTV viewers?

Create an appetizing ad experience

Despite being apprehensive about sharing data, audiences still appreciate some degree of targeted advertising. Almost one third (32%) of U.K. CTV participants in the AudienceXpress study prefer ads that harmonize with the context of the content they watch, one in four prefer ads based on their geolocation, and one in five like ads relevant to their personal interests.

Capturing attention could likely be the ad industry’s top priority as many advertising environments become saturated. In fact, ad volume can make or break the viewing experience with seven in 10 UK CTV respondents feeling there are too many ads on social video aggregators. It is important that TV and premium video providers continue to carefully manage their ad volumes using advanced digital capabilities to further enhance the advertising experience through frequency capping and ad podding.

Nearly six in 10 U.K. CTV respondents also affirm that when accessing free premium video and TV-like content on their CTV screen, they would prefer pre-roll style ads with no ad breaks afterwards. It is necessary for TV and premium video providers to account for this and balance sustaining a quality ad experience with helping advertisers meet their KPIs and attracting greater spend.

In addition, almost three-quarters of these CTV viewers surveyed indicate that they pay more attention to advertising on premium on-demand TV platforms compared to social media or video aggregators. Through ensuring their advertising experience is contextually relevant and features long-form ads with high-impact creative, TV and premium video providers can secure high levels of attention that increase the value of their inventory.

As the advertising landscape is rapidly evolving, TV and premium video providers need to continually taste-test how their advertising experiences and business models align with audience habits. With in-depth insights of the current market, they can plate up successful offerings that meet the expectations of viewers and media buyers, define best practices for advanced TV advertising, and secure an essential valuable delicacy — audience attention.

Advertising | Perspectives

What publishers miss about brand safety and corporate values

Publishers need to keep pace with the evolution of marketing. One such evolutionary step has been the emergence of values-based marketing. This approach appeals to consumer values and ethics, and expresses a brand’s values as part of its marketing message.

As just one indicator, the rise of values-based marketing can be measured by looking at the S&P 500 over the last decade or so. In 2011, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) involvement among the S&P 500 sat at under 20% according to the Harvard Business Review. By 2019, that number soared to over 90%. It took only eight years for the overwhelming majority of some of the most influential companies on Earth to embrace a more value-centric marketing approach.

One of the key motivators behind this sweeping philosophical shift is something that’s governed most public-facing company decisions since time immemorial: consumer opinion. According to Accenture, 63% of online customers surveyed around the world prefer companies and brands that share their own values. Our research found that a comparable 69% of customers stated that they agreed with the statement, “Companies that are genuine and authentic appeal to me.”

However, obvious consumer interest and strong advertiser adoption doesn’t mean there aren’t gaps. Brands should consider how all aspects of their marketing strategy might impact their values-based marketing goals–in particular, when it comes to brand safety and suitability.

The connection between brand values and brand safety

Brand safety and suitability controls enable advertisers to reduce reputational risk by avoiding content that might clash with a brand’s desired message, and this can differ greatly from advertiser to advertiser, campaign to campaign. At the same time, brands want to work with publishers that offer a voice and audience that align with their objectives and values–which means looking beyond the individual pieces of content an ad might appear alongside.

But there can be a disconnect between a brand’s values-based marketing goals and their brand safety strategies. This gap creates operational and revenue challenges for publishers as well as hindering advertisers’ ability to effectively reach the right audiences. For example, a brand’s keyword list might include words or phrases that are unintentionally limiting placements next to the content that aligns most with their desired audiences.

Bringing audience and brand values into the brand suitability conversation

As brands put more focus on their values-based marketing strategies, publishers have an opportunity to showcase how they can support those goals and help clients find the right balance with brand suitability. This starts with both sides understanding the available tools and how to work them into an optimized strategy. It ends with informed collaboration around the unique aspects of the particular publisher, brand and audience.

In the keyword example above, the brand might consider transitioning away from a keyword-based approach, which only considers what is contained in the URL-string of a page and not the context, tone or meaning of the content on that page. In most cases, a content category offers more streamlined and comprehensive protection than a keyword list while avoiding the pitfalls of excluding valuable opportunities to reach their target audience.

This points to the importance of building a nuanced and individualized brand suitability strategy that balances brand protection and brand values.

Moving the conversation forward: best practices for publishers

So, what can publishers do? Whether used in programmatic or direct environments, education and advocacy are critical to reaching mutually beneficial partnerships. For example, a publisher might consider asking to be added to an inclusion list if there is alignment between their voice and a brand’s values.

When brands strike the right balance between protection and values, they can reach larger audiences and feel safer spending more. Publishers that are empowered with an understanding of brand suitability tools and how they work can help advertisers align their settings with their values and marketing goals. And that’s a win for everyone.

Advertising | Revenue | Supporter Spotlight

Real-time data boosts ad revenue for publishers

Today’s fast-paced digital landscape requires publishers to make critical business decisions faster than ever. Over the past several years, as media executives have sought to streamline their operations and optimize advertising revenue, tech-forward media teams have started leaning into data automation to replace cumbersome manual ad ops processes and resolve common data integration pain points.

However, while leveraging automation to address pain points can improve operational efficiency, automation alone is not enough to stay ahead of the competition and drive revenue. To thrive in today’s increasingly competitive market and sail through the macro headwinds putting pressure on revenue from shrinking ad budgets, inflation, and diversification, publishers need the ability to recognize revenue opportunities and act on them in real time. 

Why real-time data matters

Despite the economic challenges publishers are facing, the global digital advertising market is still expected to grow from $178.29 billion in 2022 to $185.17 billion in 2023 and is predicted to reach $209.43 billion by 2027.

Yes, big data can be used for predictive analytics that allow businesses to anticipate future trends and events. However, Real-time data allows businesses to anticipate, act on, and monetize what is trending right now.

Automation is a great starting point. But it is just the beginning of a publisher’s journey towards efficient and profitable operations. With billions of rows of data being gathered from hundreds of disparate sources, data science teams are becoming increasingly overwhelmed trying to report effectively and reliably on this data. And this leaves business teams unable to capitalize on critical revenue opportunities. 

Real-time data analytics driving revenue operations strategies

By leveraging real-time insights, publishers can drive several strategies that generate more advertising revenue faster. 

1. Real-time advertising inventory management

Identifying fluctuations in demand, audience engagement, and ad performance is critical to optimizing ad inventory effectively.  Without real-time insights, publishers may fail to capitalize on peak demand periods or trends, resulting in missed opportunities to generate higher ad revenue, and placements that could have been highly relevant and valuable may go unnoticed or be underutilized.

2. Targeted ad campaigns

Understanding audience’s preferences, behaviors, and interests in the moment enables publishers to deliver highly targeted and relevant ads to their audience. Without this capability, you may be forced to resort to generic or static ad placements, missing out on the chance to engage users with personalized content at premium pricing and lower overall revenue.

3. Competitive pricing strategies

By monitoring market dynamics and competitor activities in real time, publishers can adjust pricing strategies to optimize rates and ad packages while remaining competitive. Without this real-time visibility, you may struggle to stay on top of pricing trends, changing market conditions, or competitor offers and miss opportunities to attract advertisers who are looking for more favorable pricing or packages.

4. Ad performance optimization

Monitoring ad performance metrics allows publishers to make timely adjustments to improve results. By quickly identifying underperforming ads, publishers can optimize placements, targeting, or creatives to enhance engagement and conversions. Without access to real-time data, it may take longer to identify and address underperforming ads. This can result in wasted impressions, lower click-through rates, and decreased revenue potential.

5. Responsive campaign management

Publishers need to be able to respond quickly to shifts in consumer behavior, market trends, or breaking news. By leveraging real-time insights ad campaigns can be adapted and aligned with the evolving needs and interests of your audience. Media execs who struggle to identify emerging opportunities or react swiftly to changing circumstances may miss out on potential revenue gains that could arise from timely and relevant ad placements.

Best practices for optimizing real-time data analytics

Invest in a flexible, scalable, SOC-compliant platform that can support terabyte scale, with hundreds of native connections and the ability to connect to data warehouses, SQL databases, cloud bucket storage & email reports. 

In addition, a platform with an automated data ingestion process (encompassing both 1st party data and 3rd party data) that also automatically monitors for data quality will eliminate the need for less experienced data analysts to do commoditized manual labor and allow your data team to focus on more strategic value-add initiatives.

Build a suite of reports that focus specifically on your KBIs – from information on billable revenue generated and revenue at risk to specific metrics on campaign pacing and impression/click delivery and discrepancies. 

Leveraging automation and channeling real-time data into a single source of truth will allow you to improve targeting and forecasting accuracy, make rapid data-driven decisions, and continually optimize campaign performance in a dynamic environment.

Foster a culture that prioritizes the use of data and encourages employees across divisions to utilize data insights to make critical business decisions. Building a data-driven culture requires buy-in from leadership and organizational communication that reinforces the significance of analytics and empowers their team.

Get real time

Real-time analytics enable effective decision-making and are a crucial element of publishers’ success across content, advertising, and data-driven initiatives. Publishers who can quickly respond to market trends and ever-changing consumer behavior will have a significant advantage in an increasingly crowded media landscape.

But this is only the beginning of a constantly evolving journey. To maintain a competitive position, publishers must stay up-to-date with emerging data management and analytics trends and invest in the right technology and team to help guide their strategy into the next era of digital transformation.

Advertising | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

Media execs can’t afford to sleep on attention 

As publishers and advertisers look for privacy-compliant metrics to help evaluate performance and engagement, everyone’s talking about attention – and for good reason. While it may seem easy to view the topic as just another passing fad, attention is likely here to stay.

A 2021 Microsoft study revealed the average attention span is just eight seconds. It has also been estimated that the average American is exposed to anywhere from 4,000 to 10,000 ads per day. Ads that hold attention for at least 2.5 seconds have been proven responsible for a 50% increase in sales. 

If stats like that aren’t enough to convince you, note that attention metrics can also serve as part of a solution to many of the industry’s ongoing shifts. For example, attention measurement solutions are generally cookieless, which provides an option given inevitable cookie deprecation. Attention metrics can be used to serve more relevant ads, thereby reducing the environmental impact of campaigns. They can also be used to help prove the impact of marketing spend in times of economic uncertainty. 

With attention looking likely to become industry-standard, publishers need to truly understand attention metrics and how best to leverage them. Those who are able to prove the quality of their inventory stand to gain in the short and long term. 

A quick refresher on attention

Traditional metrics like Video Completion Rate (VCR) and Click Through Rate (CTR) no longer provide a comprehensive way to track engagement. Viewability, as defined by the Media Rating Council, only ensures an ad is in the viewable area of a user’s screen for a set duration – typically one second. Attention metrics offer a more detailed understanding of how users interact with ads and provide valuable insights into engagement. 

By analyzing attention metrics, advertisers can evaluate the effectiveness of different elements within an ad, such as specific visuals, headlines, or calls to action, as well as the probability of a specific placement to capture user attention. This data can inform iterative improvements in creative design, supply targeting, and placement strategies to optimize audience attention and engagement. 

Lab-based methodologies and panel-based eye-tracking technology are two of many approaches used to capture attention metrics. Ultimately, these attention metrics and measurement approaches give publishers and advertisers a more nuanced understanding of audience engagement, ad effectiveness, and brand impact. 

What you need to know now 

Attention measurement allows advertisers to target inventory that generates attention and campaign outcomes. Publishers can use it to guarantee advertisers increased visibility and brand recall, which isn’t possible with traditional clickthrough and impression metrics. 

Some say attention refers to an ad’s ability to: successfully engage a user, measure the quality and quantity of attention, and measure media and creative effectiveness. However, at present, there’s no uniformly agreed-upon definition of attention. 


As a result, no standard measurement methodology exists yet either. Many big industry providers like MOAT, IAS, and DoubleVerify (as well as new grassroots attention measurement providers) have developed multiple KPIs and technologies for measuring attention. While there are many applications and use cases, attention vendors often focus on measuring media quality and predicting which placements (a combination of domain, device, and format) are likely to generate more attention.

However, the IAB recently gathered a group of key stakeholders to focus on the measurement landscape, increasing the chances that attention will soon become the new standard industry metric. 

How publishers can benefit 

It’s true that the attention trend is driven by demand, and mostly delivers buyer-driven benefits. However, media companies can also use attention metrics to benchmark their inventory to understand what’s driving quality engagement to inform pricing to increase revenue and improve the audience experience.

Attention metrics can be used to track the site user’s journey. Time-in-view, scrolling behavior, and mouse-over-data can all be used to determine time spent interacting with page elements – including ads. This allows you to analyze placement on your pages through eye-tracking panels and follow-up questionnaires to determine which ad formats generate more attention and the correlation to brand awareness/purchase consideration.

The findings allow you to adjust your monetization strategies accordingly to charge more for placement generating attention. Being able to prove your media has a direct effect on ad impact and performance will allow you to attract high-quality advertisers. They will be willing to pay a premium for ad placements in environments where users are highly engaged.

Finally, attention metrics contribute to a better ad experience for your audience. Consumers want to avoid sites featuring intrusive or irrelevant content. Understanding the formats and placements consumers prefer to engage with creates a seamless user experience and ultimately builds trust. Performance metrics around contextual advertising have illustrated this, proving consumers will accept additional privacy-compliant intelligence when it is used to serve the most relevant content. 


While it will take time for attention metrics and measurement to become standard, there is potential for an ad attention measurement currency in the future. Publishers who pay attention and start experimenting now will be ready to lead the way when that time comes. 

Supporter Spotlight | Video

Is it time to upgrade your video-production toolkit?

When it comes to video storytelling, tools are a critical factor in determining the quality of your product. Reliance on outdated video-production tools can affect your ability to compete with other brands battling for audience attention and loyalty.

Video is becoming an incredibly valuable tool for disseminating information quickly to audiences. In fact, 43.4% of internet users watch online videos as a source of learning each week. For media organizations seeking to build loyalty and report on breaking news, it’s important to have a suite of tools that makes it easy to create brand-consistent videos with just a few clicks. 

Given trend shifts in the video-production industry, read on to evaluate if your tool suite could use an upgrade.

What goes into video production?

The world of modern video production is more important than ever, given that companies need to put tools in the hands of as many reporting teams and video editors as possible. While some videos may require high production costs and complex systems, it is beneficial to also have tools that make it easy to respond to timely local news and major events. For content that needs to be published quickly, companies need to have resources available that allow reporters to share content at any time, from anywhere with the click of a button.

Today, publishers producing the best videos customize their themes, ensure brand recognition, publish directly from advanced interfaces and much more. The videos that stand out in today’s crowded marketplace live on multiple platforms and speak directly to viewers while getting online quickly.

Video production challenges 

There’s no doubt that today’s video storytelling is better than ever. That quality comes at a cost, though. Modern video storytellers face a variety of challenges with video production, including the following:

1. Time

In today’s fast-paced news environment, publishers need to be able to post top-quality videos in less time than ever before. This time crunch is a real problem for many organizations and can easily separate the winning digital publications from those who fall behind.

To combat time-related issues, teams benefit from platforms that allow them to automate many of the repetitive tasks of video production. Tools like templating and brand recognition packages help publishers push to-the-minute video content without missing crucial deadlines or falling behind the news cycle.

2. Incorrect formatting 

Many storytelling teams have tried to get around time-crunch problems by creating one-size-fits-all content. Unfortunately, this kind of content often feels unoriginal and duplicative. Additionally, it may not be properly sized or formatted for the intended platform. As consumers increasingly gather information from alternative sources such as social media, email and websites, it’s important to have content that can be adjusted and reformatted for each location.

To combat this issue, teams have two choices: invest far more time and energy in each video or use a platform that makes it easy to create diverse material that remains on-brand. The right digital publishing tools provide comprehensive customization options, including the ability to swap out themes while applying branding across videos and publishing them in the correct sizing. 

3. Software limitations

Relying on limited, low-capacity software to produce critical video content can be a big pitfall for publishers that want to stand out. Software limitations make it virtually impossible to remain competitive in the video-storytelling environment and may even create unnecessary bottlenecks during breaking news events.

To combat software limitations, today’s digital publishers must find video-production software that provides powerful tools, including theme customization, personalization, publishing flexibility and more.

4. Team size

Historically, teams have needed to grow larger to support video storytelling efforts. That’s because video storytelling tools are often complex, and not everyone was equipped to use them. As a result, teams needed to create entire publishing and production departments full of people who knew how to use advanced tools.

Today, however, large teams can actually make it harder to be agile and adaptable. Therefore, the most competitive publishing teams out there are paring down, opting for more intuitive software (that doesn’t require specialized skills to use) rather than larger teams. This allows your teams to be effective in a variety of key focus areas, while still producing engaging content.

Critical Focus

Video production software can help increase competitiveness across the market. With this in mind, let’s look at a couple of recent advancements in video-production software that will help you optimize your strategy. 

Automating branded content

To be recognizable, branding should incorporate the same logos and color schemes across all videos. This is necessary to ensure brand recognizability, while producing quality material quickly and easily. Modern video-production software can help you reuse branded assets and themes where they are needed. The ability to save brand themes and layouts across multiple platforms allows media teams to rapidly implement them across the board. This gives teams more time to focus on making the content stand out while maintaining brand consistency. 

Anywhere, anytime video production

As teams have pared down and become leaner and more agile, video-production software has morphed to support the needs of small teams. In other words, your teams must be able to easily create videos from anywhere, at any time, with any device. This makes it easy for reporters in the field to cover breaking news across your social channels and your website.

Ease, automation, and always on-brand content

Today’s media teams must have the ability to easily create quality video-storytelling materials without sacrificing speed, accuracy or branding. Today, this is critical for any company that wants to remain competitive, creative and innovative in today’s fast-paced video-publication environment. 

Great video production serves several purposes: it spreads breaking news, educates audiences and promotes viewership. Clearly, media companies make a significant contribution in building their brand and that brand trust should be maximized across platforms. Streamlining that process allows teams to focus on creating the kind of content that promotes brand recognition and audience retention.

Advertising | Supporter Spotlight

Why publishers see success in direct-sold programmatic

Advertisers that solely opt to access publisher inventory through the open marketplace (OMP) face significant addressability problems. While the OMP completely changed the way media owners and advertisers collaborated, becoming the “path to least resistance” for both buyers and sellers, it is now creating more resistance. But as with so many things in life, what’s old is new again and direct-sold strategies are delivering benefits to publishers once again.

Open programmatic no longer serves its purpose

Even with Chrome’s third-party cookies still in play, only 30% of audiences on the open web are targetable. This is because 40% of Chrome’s users make their data unavailable to advertisers and the Firefox and Safari browsers already operate without third-party cookies.

Open web addressability is a big problem: Why would advertisers want to use the majority of their ad spend to reach 30% of audiences? There is also no guarantee of premium inventory and placements as well as a lack of control and transparency in the OMP as a result of ad fraud and third-party targeting that doesn’t deliver on the audience advertisers are trying to reach.

In light of this, publishers are re-evaluating their strategies. For example, one parent and lifestyle publisher made the proactive decision to reduce their reliance on the OMP, not just because it isn’t a reliable source of revenue, but because they can’t control their narrative with buyers in that environment. Working with advertisers directly means they get to highlight non-endemic audiences at a scale they can achieve.

Publishers need to make revenue and ensure they are giving their audience the best possible experience, while advertisers only want to reach the most relevant people within this audience. The lack of addressability in the OMP leads to failure on both fronts.

The building blocks of going direct

Between October and November 2022, the IAB surveyed 223 buy-side ad investment decision-makers and found that 53% planned to increase their focus on ad placements with publishers using first-party data. According to a report by Adweek, brands like Hershey’s, which spend between $350M- 450M annually on advertising, realise they are spending a lot of money and not showing up in premium environments. Hershey’s now has a target of buying 80% of addressable media via private marketplaces (PMPs) and only 20% on the OMP.

Publishers’ first-party datasets—built on authenticated, contextual, declared, and behavioural data—can be leveraged by advertisers directly to activate unreachable audiences. But for this shift to work, publishers must continue encouraging buyers to see the benefits of working directly with them and perhaps even educate an entire population of buyers that have worked primarily with OMP.

To do this, publishers need to satisfy advertiser demand by providing quality audiences from interest, intent, and in-market audiences, provide scale and ensure reach across all relevant platforms and browsers, tell rich and compelling stories about their audiences via deep insights, showcase how audiences are built and be transparent about audience creation, and demonstrate how their first party audiences can help deliver and improve performance mid-flight and achieve advertiser objectives.

Reaping the benefits

Publishers already working this way benefit from using their first-party data to drive direct deals, and buyers are seeing an improved performance. Trusted Media Brands (TMB), whose titles include FailArmy, Family Handyman, Reader’s Digest, and Taste of Home, have been working on their data strategy to ensure they can understand audiences across all browsers, especially in cookie-blocked environments such as Safari.

TMB now delivers direct-sold campaigns 94% of the time using first-party data. The work has resulted in a 140% increase in revenue from deals using first-party data, a 31% increase in RFP win rate when data is on an IO and a 2X increase in deal size when data is present on an IO vs no data.

Similarly, Gumtree is seeing results from using first-party data in direct deals, with a 36% increase in click-through rates in Q1 2023, and a 14% increase in average cost per thousand impressions.

The driving force behind addressability

The best way for publishers and advertisers to maximize their revenue and budgets, respectively, is to focus on addressability. First-party data and direct-sold will be the driving force behind that.

Direct deals deliver quality first-party data and scalable first-party audiences that meet advertisers’ needs, increase transparency, and control, and enable access to premium inventory and ad placements. Working direct also results in insights and reporting into audiences on how they inform an advertiser’s targeting strategy. Advertisers know where their ad spend is going and which audiences they are reaching with more accuracy.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion | Industry-Research | Supporter Spotlight

Growing audiences–and your media business–through diversity

Is our organization serving the right audiences to expand the reach and impact of our journalism? Are we fulfilling our social mission to inform the public and represent the variety of viewpoints of our society? Are we relying too heavily on one type of reader to sustain us financially in the future?

Those are some of the questions that dominated the discussions over the course of FT Strategies and Google News Initiative’s Audience Diversity Academy. In this inaugural six-month programme, six publishers across Europe came together to better understand and address the needs and behaviors of younger and women audiences. This article summarizes our approach and subsequent report, Seizing the diversity opportunity: enabling growth in the news business.  Here, I will focus on strategic guidance, and you can read the full report for  case studies, practical experiments and more.

Why should I care, you ask? 

Besides being preoccupied with questions similar to our participants’, the social turmoil that rippled from societal uprisings across newsrooms in the U.S. continues to cause further pressure. Heavily influenced by uprisings following the #MeToo movement and murder of George Floyd, America’s media organizations are reckoning with the lack of diversity internally and in their coverage. There’s significant room for improvement to be sure: for example just one woman’s voice exists to every 1.7 male voice in stories and the 21% of women of color in the population is reflected by just 3% of editors in politics. 

For the skeptics out there, addressing such organizational and coverage disparities can lead to commercial upsides, among other things. Growing diverse audiences and ensuring a more diverse organization can help your company respond to changing consumer behaviors and economic headwinds. It can also help organizations proactively gain a foothold in the increasingly aggressive battle for talent.

So how can I seize the opportunity of audience diversity?

Our framework below was crucial to building an audience diversity strategy for the participants:

Start with a clear case and diversity goal, backed up by leadership

There are many aspects to consider when baking audience diversity into your strategy. However, a few influential leaders working with a group of highly engaged employees, who strongly identify with the mission, is a great place to start. This means ensuring enough traction at the top to prioritize audience diversity and communicate across the business, while the grassroots can generate practical ideas and excite colleagues. The publishers who moved ahead quicker are those who created a clear goal with hypotheses to test, measuring their progress with defined metrics.

Create regular, authentic mechanisms to listen to your audience and act on their feedback

Journalism is no longer a monologue; the more you invite the underrepresented segments to be part of a conversation, the more heard they feel and the better you understand their needs. Go beyond ad-hoc feedback such as with regular initiatives to collect qualitative and quantitative information such as interviews, surveys, newsroom tours, video calls, website analytics. Make sure you can include audience suggestions on the content and product in your strategic activities in order to create a more diverse proposition. At the FT we have an Audience Engagement team that advocates for high quality, diverse readers.

Sustain the effort to connect to an audience with content for them, experienced in ways that suit their needs

While it is important to avoid negative media stereotyping, underrepresented segments should have access to authentic, equitable and representative content. Having the data in the newsroom to track coverage across communities, how they engage with the stories and the amount of voices, images and sources included can shine light on the limitations of existing content and encourage more diverse commissioning decisions. 

This partly lies with the newsroom. But marketing, product and data should work in cross-departmental teams to ensure there is a variety of tactics to acquire and retain audiences. For example, we found that women are often confined by time, so offering them alternative methods of consumption, such as audio or newsletters, strengthens their engagement with the product.

Reflect the society you serve in your organizational make-up–but look beyond hiring

It is challenging to create a diverse product without a diverse employee base to weave their ideas in stories, design, production and delivery. However, we found that publishers look at their employee data split by (e.g.) gender and tend to conclude they are 50:50. Certainly, you should recognize this achievement. However, it is also critical to examine how employees from minority groups feel at the workplace, how many progress upwards, and what their tenure is, in order to measure your ability to both acquire and empower talent. We experimented with a group of women writing on rotation a newsletter on topics that matter for women. The results showed better individual recognition and a higher uptake of the newsletter by women readers.

I want to note that we cannot reduce diversity to simply age and gender, and diversity is the first step in a long journey towards a more inclusive and equitable audience and organization. However, for the purpose of the programme, we focused on age and gender to make our efforts most impactful. We believe that the approach and the learnings are applicable to other diversity aspects.

Diversity is not simply about representation in the newsroom, or in the content we produce. It serves our readers by better reflecting society. And it serves our business by attracting a broad talent pool, and better meeting the expectations of our audiences. 

About the author

Rumyana is a manager at FT Strategies, and has worked with large media & publishing companies across Europe. She led FT the Google News Initiative Audience diversity programme, and also has experience in content strategy and engagement tactics. She was recently part of the Financial Times’ Audience Engagement team supporting their audience diversity initiatives. Prior to joining the FT, Rumyana was a consultant at KPMG.

Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

How publishers can make the most of TikTok

For the past few years, TikTok has been the platform at the cutting edge of social media, with a rapidly growing, young cohort of users. It is also the place nearly 1 in 7 people in the 18 to 24 age group turn to for news.

Media companies like ABC News and the Washington Post have developed a strong following on the platform. And BBC News has seen a 2000% increase in followers in the last nine months. 

Reuters Institute reports that 49% of leading news publishers worldwide now regularly post to TikTok and the number of publishers committing to the platform continues to climb. Echobox’s latest Publishing Trends Survey found that 59% of publishers believed TikTok would be more important to them this year compared to 2022 — a jump of 39% in the last year. 

These developments, however, are taking place against the backdrop of growing regulatory pressure on TikTok’s parent company ByteDance. It is conceivable that the world’s fastest growing social media app could soon be banned in the U.S. Why, then, are so many news organizations choosing to invest in a platform whose future is shrouded in uncertainty?

Why invest in a platform with an uncertain future?

1. The short term gain justifies the investment

The simplest answer is that whatever happens to TikTok in the future is less important than the benefit to be gained from using the platform now. When we asked publishers which activities would be more important to them this year, 47% of respondents to our survey answered growing social followers and engagement. Publishers are going where the audiences are, with the hope that readers exposed to their content will either follow them on other social platforms or sign up for newsletters or other subscription products in the event that TikTok becomes unviable.

2. All social media is becoming like TikTok

In the long term, the continued investment in TikTok is an indication of the new realities of social media as a whole. Quite simply, TikTok has changed the game.

In the last couple of years, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube have all sharpened their focus on TikTok, looking to ape its distinctive allure. The calculus here is that even if the platform was to be banned, the innovations that it pioneered, such as short-form vertical format video, will remain alive and well on other platforms.

Meta’s cross-platform Reels as well as YouTube Shorts have experienced impressive performance stats. Meta announced during its Q1 2023 earnings call that Reels was responsible for a 24% increase in time spent on the platform. 

Investments made into acquiring the skills and technology to produce content on TikTok can therefore be put to productive use on other platforms where short-form vertical videos have been incorporated. 

The results of our publisher survey reinforce this. For 47% of publishers, creating video will be more important this year than last.

The time is right

In the here and now, how can publishers take advantage of TikTok’s popularity and increase the potential virality of their content?

The most fundamental difference between TikTok and Facebook is the nature of its “recommender algorithms” that determine what content is served up to a given user. Instead of relying on who you follow to determine what content you should see, per Facebook’s model, TikTok relies purely on opaque algorithms to serve up content without a user having to follow anyone; the single imperative on TikTok is to watch. 

This removes a barrier to publishers who want to increase their exposure on the platform. Not having the potential visibility of content circumscribed by follower numbers means that, theoretically, it’s easier for any publisher to produce highly-viewed, or even viral content.

Timing is everything

Achieving high performance on TikTok is all a matter of timing.

The process by which TikTok promotes content is simple: it shows content to a small sample of users in its For You feed. Then, if engagement and watch time is high, the video gets promoted to a larger group and so on. Posting video at a time in which a high number of engaged users are active means that the potential for virality is immediately increased. 

Utilizing AI-powered social media management tools to optimize post timings is therefore a simple and cost-effective way to increase visibility. The fact that a publisher’s TikTok follower count has virtually no bearing on which content is promoted allows greater opportunities for AI systems to maximize the potential visibility of a video and help its performance snowball.

The future of TikTok remains uncertain, but the platform is rich in immediate benefits. With over a billion (predominantly young) users, publishers have the opportunity to meet new audiences where they are congregating. With a combination of AI smarts and a forward-looking strategy, publishers can become trusted and indispensable news sources with or without TikTok.

About the author

Ashley Kibler is the Marketing Director at Echobox, the leading solution for publishing automation used by over 2,000 publishers and media groups worldwide to automate and optimize content curation and distribution.

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Advertising | Innovation | Supporter Spotlight

Afraid of AI? Start with ad optimization

There is perhaps no greater trend in the tech world right now than artificial intelligence (AI). Specifically, generative AI, which can produce content based on prompts, is garnering a lot of attention from – and even causing fear within – media companies.

Generative AI makes content creation far easier, so media companies likely feel that they have to dive head-first into a future of AI-generated articles and TV shows.

The truth is that there is a far easier, even safer way for the media industry to dip its toes into the AI waters and prove out that it’s a worthwhile investment. The best place to start is with using AI to optimize advertising across media, whether that’s a website, an app, a CTV channel, streaming platform, or linear TV network.

A quick start with AI

It’s not breaking news that media companies need to adapt to remain competitive and constantly find new ways to create efficiencies and cut costs while remaining adaptable to industry trends. AI is getting attention because it promises to be an incredibly effective way for media companies to accomplish these goals.

Ad optimization is probably the easiest, fastest way to a return on your AI investment, largely because there are so many different ways that AI can be applied to the advertising process. These are just a few of the use cases for AI across a media business.

Personalization

When machine learning algorithms analyze user behavior and preferences, they can determine the ideal ad placement based on factors such as user demographics, interests, and browsing history. This personalization can lead to higher click-through rates and conversions for inventory, which allows a media company to charge a higher price and therefore drive more revenue. Similar models can be used for ad supported TV and CTV to optimize pod placement of advertisements in a TV show.

These same data signals can also fuel content recommendations, giving your audience a customized experience and driving longer interactions with a media brand.

Flexibility

Another application of AI is to track and analyze ad engagement. Ads that draw more interest from consumers are likely to perform better. Armed with this knowledge, media companies can adjust ad placement and content in real-time for maximum impact.

Insights

AI can analyze user-generated content, such as comments and reviews, to better understand user sentiment. This provides intel on whether ad placements need to be tailored to improve a negative experience.

Automation

AI’s greatest strength is automation, which can dramatically reduce the amount of time media companies spend running A/B tests on their ad formats and placements. Using AI, a company can run tests quickly and efficiently, helping determine the most effective strategy for their platforms. The ad creative itself can also go through a model to determine which ads will resonate with certain audiences.

Each of these use cases should excite media companies that are looking to increase efficiency and drive greater revenue. But the question still remains – where, exactly, should a company start? There are two key steps every operation should take.

1. Prioritize data collection

There’s an old saying, “garbage in, garbage out.” Even the most advanced AI is only successful when data is accurate and viable. In fact, we’re seeing hot consumer-facing AI products come under scrutiny because they generate inaccurate answers.

The first step any media company should take to effectively implement AI is to collect data on its audience. Most media companies already have this intelligence in spades, so the step becomes gathering it together in a usable fashion. Often, data can be siloed across different groups. It’s important to get buy-in across the company on any AI initiatives, so that the models have access to as much data as possible.

For most media companies, this data is generated by the users themselves, in the form of activity across the media properties, subscription sign ups, and ad interactions. This good, clean data provides insights into the types of ads audiences respond to, what times they’re most receptive to seeing an ad, and how they choose to react.

2. Select and apply algorithms

Armed with information about the audience, the next step is to use it. This is where media companies need to roll up their sleeves and better understand AI and Machine Learning. There are many different types of algorithms that can be used for ad optimization purposes, and media enterprises need to select the model that works best for their business and their goals.

These algorithms utilize historical data from previous campaigns as well as current campaign performance metrics in order to predict future performance based on similar past conditions. They learn over time, so with more data and time the models become more accurate at predicting future outcomes. Of course, most media companies don’t have the resources to build a model that specifically adheres to their business goals. Outsourcing teams to build models can further speed up adoption.

Again, AI for making content is getting all of the headlines, and it’s certainly valuable, but that’s not the place to start for most media companies. Ad optimization is an easy way to get started, and an easier way to start driving revenue and justify the costs of outsourcing algorithm development and technological updates. Now is the time to get on board. The next best time was yesterday.

Advertising | Revenue | Supporter Spotlight

Pathway to driving incremental branded content revenue

In a previous post, we predicted that there would be a rapid expansion of brand content with the adoption of generative AI and discussed how publishers can utilize this adoption to fuel growth. I wanted to expand on some strategies publishers can implement to start the conversations with brands and agencies about using the content they have already invested in to drive brand consideration.

Publishers can leverage a brand’s non-promotional content and powerful storytelling to drive new and incremental revenue. Consumers across different mediums are actively engaged with long-form content, increasing brand recognition. Here’s a pathway for publishers that want to help brands use content in order to optimize the revenue potential for their businesses.

Content: A vehicle for influence

Before we jump into the strategies, why should you care about prospecting with content? Here are some numbers to help convince you that consumers rely on content to make purchase decisions:

  • According to Content Science, 70% of consumers prefer to learn about products and services through content rather than traditional advertising.
  • According to Nielsen, the average time spent on sponsored content is two minutes and thirty seconds. That’s roughly the same as purely editorial content.

In today’s digital age, consumers are inundated with display and video advertisements. But when it comes to product and service information, branded and sponsored content takes a backseat to these traditional digital formats. The data suggests that consumers are looking for authentic and informative content they can engage with rather than being sold to. 

Long-form branded content allows brands to tell their story, provide helpful product and category information, and ultimately guide consumers to make an informed purchase decision on their terms. As a result, companies are changing their marketing strategies to focus on creating content that informs consumers throughout the purchase journey. And publishers are the ideal partner to repurpose, optimize, and scale a brand’s content to connect with a brand’s audience.

Content sells itself

Content marketing has proven to be a game-changer; according to HubSpot, 70% of marketers are actively investing in it. Still, only a few industry partners offer solutions to scale this content outside the brand’s owned channels. The increase in investment in content marketing reflects the fact that marketers not only build trust by providing valuable and informative content but that it also positions them – and the brands they represent – as industry leaders. 

Tested tactics to drive revenue 

Repurposing content opens up a unique opportunity to create impactful prospecting strategies. One tested method is to pull content from brand marketing channels and create proactive mocks that showcase their content on a publisher’s site. 

The best outreaches we have seen involve a multi-touch approach to showcase brands’ content within a publisher’s environment, utilizing content sourced from Facebook, Instagram, blogs, ebooks, whitepapers, transcribed videos, and podcasts. These mocks can be used for prospecting new business or encouraging existing clients to invest in incremental budgets. This outreach allows brands to see how their content can be repurposed for maximum engagement.

Pro tip: streamline the process

The most impactful way to showcase the power of a brand’s content presented in the context of your site is to show marketers what that would look like. Most methods require publishers to do that directly from their CMS requiring development and design resources to create a mockup without actually pushing it live. Alternatively, publishers can use native ad servers to do this work. This way, publishers can upload the creative and content, and generate a preview link. Some platforms include content ingestion tools, which will help streamline this process further. The link can then be shared directly with the client or included as a screenshot in slides.

An alternative method would be to build a mock template in PowerPoint or another design software and copy content into the template. The problem with this method is it requires the manual and time consuming process of finding the content, pasting it into your template, and making design adjustments.

In conclusion

Content is emerging as a critical driver of influence in today’s digital world. Writing content and promoting it on different platforms builds trust and creates an authentic relationship with consumers. But creating quality content is a major investment. Taking the time to repurpose that content and automate the process correctly can help publishers partner with brands so that they can more readily scale their content and drive brand consideration. 

Perspectives | Revenue | Supporter Spotlight

Friend or foe: is AI the latest big tech assault on media revenues?

Every once in a while, a trend rippling through the digital media industry that springs up from the trade publications and into general-interest media. The launch of ChatGPT has been one of those times. AI content generation feels like more than ones and zeroes to media consumers at large. It feels tangible, even visceral, because it has direct ramifications on the production of content itself. Clearly media leaders need to make their voices heard in order to help guide the conversation for users as well as AI developers.

It would appear every Big Tech business wants in on AI chat to power search. But like identity and privacy, media companies are not about to sit back and watch which of the tech giants “wins” generative AI. They need to understand how AI will change content consumption, how they can use it to their advantage, and how to keep walled gardens from absorbing more of their revenue.

A new era for the search business

We’re seeing real and atypical disruption today in AI chat’s applications for search. Bing’s ChatGPT search function removes the onus of poring over multiple search results, and simply generates what feels like a coherent response upfront – be it right or wrong, strong or flimsy, fair, or biased. And history shows that human nature tends to prefer convenience over perfection. Search providers are already investigating how AI search may be monetized, to avoid losing out on the serious revenue search advertising traditionally has delivered (58% of Alphabet’s total revenue last year, for those keeping score).

That brings us to media companies’ reliance on search traffic to monetize their own sites and content. The prospect of users being disincentivized from visiting publisher sites to verify and provide context for information looks ominous to publishers. Today, 26% of all publisher traffic comes from search, in an environment where open web publishers are already competing against walled gardens for traffic and advertisers are reducing their budgets. And as it stands, not all AI search tools link back to their sources, and marketers are still trying to understand how the AI search ad experience should appear. And while search bots already crawl publisher pages, AI chatbots present a less balanced exchange between publisher and search engine.

Publishers that control their data have an advantage

Let’s avoid tunnel vision here, though. Publishers’ imperative to soften any blow to revenue from search traffic overlaps with their existing efforts to reduce reliance on revenue from the programmatic open market. Those efforts involve building loyalty among users and advertisers alike. For users, publishers are offering subscription packages, exclusive newsletter content, and the like. For advertisers, they’re offering private marketplaces and direct deals. Publishers can better navigate AI disruption by continuing and evolving those business strategies. They need to position themselves as sources of trustworthy, high-quality content worthy of the lifetime audience loyalty that can grow CPMs and incentivize deeper advertiser relationships. And AI has real benefits for those strategies.

If and when search becomes a less reliable source of traffic for media companies, they’ll need to ramp up efforts in driving traffic from channels such as social and video. In finding the best channels and business partners, they can turn to AI to analyze large volumes of first- and second-party data, and to do lookalike modelling. Leading publishers have already been doing this as part of their data strategy for withstanding third-party cookie deprecation. Advertisers are taking bold data strategy steps, too, and have the resources to be very advanced here. Publishers should compare notes with their brand partners to learn how to best leverage AI and machine learning for predictive audience creation, modelling, data cleaning and processing, and probabilistic matching.

We’re also seeing publishers take interest in generative AI’s capacity to accelerate and personalize content production, with human staff overseeing and completing the job. AI can do some of the lifting on lower-level SEO writing, bolster production of sponsored content, and source background from the publisher’s content archives. With ad revenues dipping on account of economic pressure, publishers are actively seeking new workflow efficiencies and content initiatives simultaneously without cutting headcount.

IP law will establish new limits for AI crawling

While we’ve all heard chatter about AI displacing human creative talent, media companies have more leverage than they might appear from a slight distance. That human-created input that drives AI output is guarded by intellectual property law. Rights holders are pushing back, and we can expect to see more robust IP regulation, and even technology that protects content from being scraped by AI tools, coming into play in the near future.

Publisher trade body The News/Media Alliance intends to pursue Big Tech companies for IP infringement, and its members want generative AI providers to agree to pay to licence their content (there’s a precedent for such licensing terms, from the use of text snippets in traditional search results). It’s questionable whether scraping publisher sites to train AI would ever fall under “fair use.”

But publishers shouldn’t simply wait for regulators to clear up these issues. That’s a path with unpredictable length and outcomes. At the top of publishers’ to-do lists should be bracing for shortfalls in search traffic, powering their data resources, and finding applications for AI to embolden content production. And Big Tech businesses should be forewarned: AI can’t be a higher priority than the sustainability of the digital publishing business that generative AI models depend on. An input of quality content makes the difference between useful output and unappealing nonsense.

Advertising | Supporter Spotlight | Video

Do advertisers fully understand the impact of streaming video?

Streaming video has seen explosive growth and isn’t yet showing any signs of slowing down. As audience habits change and evolve, are advertisers and media platforms prepared to take full advantage of the new paradigm? Whether it’s the shift from third to first-party data or ad formats designed uniquely for the streaming experience, there are plenty of cutting-edge trends and technologies that advertisers would do well to understand – and embrace.

Streaming audiences are booming

One of the biggest trends in streaming video is the rise of streaming-first networks. These networks, such as Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime, often produce their own content and offer it exclusively on their streaming platforms. This model has proven to be successful, with many streaming-first networks producing critically acclaimed shows and movies that have gained a loyal following.

According to recent data, at least 85% of US households are subscribed to at least one video streaming service. The popularity of streaming-first networks has disrupted the traditional TV model, which relies on ad-supported cable and satellite networks. As more people switch to streaming platforms, advertisers are having to adapt to the new landscape and find ways to reach their audiences through these platforms.

Netflix, the world’s leading streaming service, for a long time publicly opposed advertising and relied on a subscription-only model. However, in 2022, CEO Reed Hastings announced that the company was opening the door to advertising, signaling a sea change. Hastings cited the success of Hulu and others in monetizing their streaming platforms through advertising. And, to back this up, a survey by MAGNA found that in 2021, U.S, linear TV ad spend is projected to decrease by 7.5%, while connected TV ad spend is projected to increase by 36.5%.

Self-serve advertising: targeted and brand-safe

Many streaming platforms, including Roku and Hulu, offer self-serve advertising options that allow brands to create and target their own ad campaigns. This gives advertisers more control over their campaigns and allows them to reach specific audiences in a brand-safe way. Self-serve is considered an effective compromise between the requirements of brand safety and scale; a system that is both automated and tightly controlled by the publisher.

Through self-serve advertising, brands can choose the ad format, ad placement, and target audience based on first-party data. Advertisers can also set their own budget and optimize their campaigns based on real-time performance data. Self-serve advertising platforms are built on the availability of first-party audience data.

First-party data: the key to targeting and personalization

Another trend in streaming video is the use of first-party data. Streaming platforms collect data on their users – including what they watch, when they watch it, and on what device. This data can be used to create more targeted and personalized ad campaigns. For example, if a streaming platform knows that a particular user is a fan of action movies, it can serve them ads for action movies or related products.

First-party data can also help advertisers understand their target audience better. By analyzing user behavior and preferences, advertisers can gain insights into what types of ads are most effective and adjust their campaigns accordingly. For example, if data shows that users are more likely to engage with ads that feature humor, advertisers can create ads that use humor to capture the viewer’s attention.

Trust builds strong relationships

In addition to self-serve advertising and first-party data, it’s important for advertisers to consider the relationship between viewers, streaming brands, and trusted advertisers. As streaming platforms have become more popular, they have also become an important source of trust for many viewers. This means that advertisers who partner with trusted streaming brands and create ads that align with their values and aesthetics are more likely to be successful.

Brands that are perceived as intrusive or irrelevant can quickly lose viewers’ trust and negatively impact the reputation of the streaming platform. To build and maintain trust with viewers, advertisers must focus on creating compelling, authentic, and relevant ad content that resonates with their audience.

One way to achieve this is through sponsored content. Streaming platforms increasingly offer sponsored content as a way for brands to reach audiences in a non-intrusive way. Sponsored content can take the form of branded entertainment, product placement, or native advertising. By partnering with streaming platforms and creating sponsored content that aligns with the platform’s values and aesthetics, advertisers can reach audiences in a more organic and engaging way.

Another important factor in building trust is transparency. Advertisers must be transparent about how they collect and use data, as well as how they target and deliver ads. By being transparent, advertisers can build trust with viewers and create a more positive advertising experience.

Connecting the dots with CTV

In addition to these trends, another important factor for advertisers to consider is the growing importance of connected TV (CTV). CTV refers to televisions that are connected to the internet, allowing viewers to access streaming content directly on their TVs. Already, a full 80% of U.S. households have access to a connected TV. With CTV viewership on the rise, advertisers have the opportunity to reach audiences on a larger screen and create more immersive and engaging ad experiences. Advertisers can also use CTV to target specific households and individuals, based on first-party data and other targeting methods.

As the streaming video and CTV landscape continues to evolve, advertisers must navigate new challenges, such as ad fraud. Ad fraud refers to the practice of generating false ad impressions or clicks to defraud advertisers. Advertisers can work with media platforms and ad tech partners to implement fraud prevention measures and ensure their ad spend is used effectively.

Closing thoughts

One simple saying appropriately describes the advertising impact of streaming video: the medium is the message. Streaming video isn’t just linear in a new, on-demand format. It’s a fundamental shift in the way that viewers experience media, create relationships with brands, and ultimately make decisions as consumers. There are a host of new challenges and opportunities, all of which will impact advertisers now and in the future.

The best way for advertisers and publishers to adapt to streaming video is to embrace it. And it will help to seek out expert partners to help navigate these new waters. In many ways, we will need to forget what we think we know about video media and open our minds to a new and exciting reality that is more audience-focused, personalized, and fast-changing than ever before.

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