Tags containing: "trust"

Trust is an opportunity. Don’t miss it.

December 7, 2017 Jason Kint, CEO – DCN

The problem is simple. The solution is hard.

When DCN (re)launched in 2014 as the trade organization for the future of the premium publishers, we predicted a decline in trust in our industry which has, indeed, bore out.

The thesis: A migration to automated channels for both the delivery of advertising and the discovery of content represented a significant opportunity. But we also warned that the industry needed to make consumer, advertiser, publisher trust a priority in order to fully realize the opportunity. Now we have to ask ourselves: Has the industry failed in doing this?

With trust at the core of everything we do, DCN has spent much of the past three years shining a light on advertising supply channels, advocating positions that align with consumer trust, and learning from each other across the growing DCN membership.

This week, DCN released new research showing a measured and significant decline in trust for digital information discovered on Facebook and YouTube. It’s a problem that no one wants to talk about as it puts us at direct odds with the most powerful companies on the planet. But it’s real. And it’s a real problem for the whole industry.

Unlike much of the previous research, this study focused on more than news, analyzing the impact on entertainment content and also on advertisers. One significant finding is that the gap in trust on social networks and YouTube also impacts the publisher and advertiser brands that choose to participate in these platforms.

As always, developing a nuanced interpretation of research is critical. The easy spin is to argue for a reversal of trends by pointing out that brand websites and apps enjoy considerably-higher trust than Facebook and YouTube as sources of digital content. They do. However, history shows us that’s the short-sighted and self-preservation mindset publishers don’t need. For more than a decade, newspaper and magazine companies hoped that young readers would migrate back to print. They didn’t.

In fact, as Bharat Anand pointed out at the DCN Next: Summit last January, the great migration away from newspapers began in the 1940s. Here is the rub: We’re not going to beat the major platforms – Facebook, Instagram, YouTube – at what they do best. They provide remarkable scale and ease-of-access to information and entertainment. At the same time, they provide microtargeted audiences and ease-of-buying for advertisers. Quite simply, they are formidable players in the industry for both publishers and advertisers. But they have also been a significant force in driving the bar lower on media trust. Combined with a White House executive office seeking to discredit the media, we’re in a gnarly vortex and struggling to find the way out.

What we do know is that the solution to this problem will need to include the same ease of discovery of news and entertainment as provided by the platforms. Friction is not your friend. And advertisers are going to continue to want more in scale and automated channels. These two trends are irreversible and align with consumer and advertiser needs. Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, must be forced to enable a future beyond just protecting their financial interests and begin to take responsibility for their role in the larger digital media ecosystem.

The shot: Only significant global pressure will force Google and Facebook to risk their own business interests and be accountable to media overall.

More and more analysts are seeing it. At the recent Business Insider Ignition conference, professor and analyst Scott Galloway absolutely crushed his argument that Facebook and Google should be broken up. If you haven’t seen his remarks, I strongly recommend you watch now. Unbundling YouTube, DoubleClick, WhatsApp, and Instagram from their respective acquirers is a hard but a logical step.
Advertisers and agencies are fed up. Facebook and Google are enduring multiple colonoscopies as they submit to full audits of their measurement systems. No doubt Facebook has significant exposure here. Trust but verify.
Publishers are pressing Facebook and Google for more value which comes in the form of listening to their needs, supporting their business models and increasing brand presence in their feeds.
The press is starting to hold Google and Facebook accountable. The increased scrutiny of the company’s influence on academia, think tanks, and lawmakers – along with the overwhelming exposure of their issues – has made for an uncomfortable 2017 for the platforms. The more the independent press digs in, the more problems they find and the more safety in numbers as they call out the most powerful companies on the planet.

The chaser: Premium publishers are the solution. Advertisers are also expressing an intention to move their investments towards higher-trust media and measurement while doing everything they can to avoid being associated with the cesspools that exist on Facebook and YouTube.

Remarkably, every quarter of 2017, DCN members have seen sequential growth in digital revenues versus the same periods last year. In the swirl of what has been called the Media Apocalypse, DCN members are seeing the distant light. As much as Google and Facebook foresee opportunities to grow trust in their media by embracing trusted media brands, we’ll all come out for the better.

DCN-Research

DCN’s new research: Trust as a Proxy for Brand Value

December 6, 2017 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

As the digital landscape continues to shift, it’s essential to understand the value of trust in digital media and the components needed to build a successful consumer relationship. New DCN research, Trust as a Proxy for Brand Value, shows that consumers today are increasingly using social media as their digital gateway to access information from news to entertainment. In fact, Facebook’s newsfeed is the number one place users go to get digital content. 

Interestingly, our research uncovered that, while consumers use social platforms as a principal access point for information, they often do not trust the content they find there: Only 55% of consumers trust the information they find on social platforms. Furthermore, significantly fewer Millennials (45%) trust the information they find on social media. It appears that newsfeed automation and algorithms have a hand in the problem. Six in ten consumers (62%) agree that “there’s so much random content on social media, there’s no way to tell if an article is credible or not.”

As a result, a younger audience of “Social Skeptics” has emerged. Seven in ten of these consumers choose quality brand sites for content and prefer brand sites/apps for information. In fact, 41% of Social Skeptics have subscribed to digital content, which also signals a preference for premium content. This high-value audience is quite desirable: 61% are under the age of 40 and 68% purchased an item in the last month based on an ad they saw online.

The DCN research also showed that “fake news” and the spread of misinformation is impacting consumer trust in digital media. Eighty-two percent of consumers agree that “there is a lot of fake news on social media.” The fake news problem doesn’t stop there. Fifty-five percent of consumers surveyed noted they find a lot of fake news on brand sites and apps as well. Younger generations (Millennials and Gen-Xers) are even more likely to say there is a fake news problem. Misleading headlines, too many ads, and sensational, clickbait articles are top items that break consumer trust.

Brand sites build trust by delivering on key attributes, such as credibility and accuracy, which correlate highly to both trust and importance. However, there are also hidden drivers which are less obvious—but correlate highly to trust. These include popularity, virality, and personalization, all of which are important strategies to employ and very much a part of the algorithms of platforms.  

Four key building blocks of trust that brand sites should incorporate into their strategies were uncovered in the DCN research. All four components are important in establishing and maintaining brand trust.

attribution: confirming information with multiple sources;
reputation: acting as an authority;
navigation: ease-of-use /smart user experience; 
prediction: positive past experience and direct relationship with the consumer.

Advertiser Impact

Consumer trust in brand sites also positively impacts advertisers on the site. Higher trust in brand sites results in a trust halo effect for advertisers. Brand sites provide a significant boost in advertiser trust and positive perception compare to social media and YouTube.

Two attributes that highly correlate to the importance and trust of advertisers on brand sites include emotional connection and identification with the style and tone of the brand site. In terms of building trust for the advertisers on a brand site, these two components resonate significantly with Millennials as compared to other generations. 

Consumer expectations around trust is higher for brand sites and apps. Consumers expect them to be trustworthy, credible, accurate, and up-to-date. Thus, brands should closely monitor trust and work to maintain it as a key differentiator in the volatile digital media marketplace. 

DCN-Research | Industry-Research

DCN and Reuters Institute studies align: Trust is key for the success of digital media

December 6, 2017 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

Digital Content Next (DCN) and the Reuters Institute both released significant studies on trust in digital information within a week of each other. Here’s a topline analysis of the many consistencies in the findings important to navigating the future of digital content and building trust in media.

First and foremost, it’s important to note each methodology and identify the differences. Here’s how they compare:Here are some of Reuters’ top findings (and how they compare with DCN’s):

Social media is trusted less than the news media in its ability to separate fact from fiction. Respondents think newsfeeds are filled with inaccurate information, extreme agendas, and strong opinions, perhaps encouraged by social media algorithms.

Supports DCN’s findings of 62% agree “There’s so much random content on social media, there’s no way to tell if an article is credible or not.”

A significant proportion of respondents feel journalists do a good job in checking sources, verifying facts, and providing evidence to back up claims.

Supports DCN’s findings regarding the building blocks of the Trust Model and the importance of key components: brand sites must focus on four key areas to build trust: attribution (confirming multiple sources), reputation or authority, navigation/user experience, and prediction — building a direct relationship with consumers that builds upon past experiences.

In talking about trust, people mention television brands more than any other type of media (e.g. print or online).

Supports DCN’s findings in the regarding top trust brands – Newspaper and TV/Cable legacy brands historically rooted in media.

Some media outlets are taking sides, encouraging polarized set of opinions.

Supports DCN’s recommendation that Brand sites and apps should focus on what’s vital to consumers to drive trust, position their content as regularly updated, respected, and authentic in addition to the core positioning of high quality and trustworthy.

A substantial minority who trust social media, do so for its broad range of views and authenticity.

Key Recommendations:

The news media needs to differentiate itself more from information that has not gone through the same professional checking processes

DCN’s recommendation that fake news and distracting settings are significant problems in the digital landscape. A good opportunity for premium publishers to market themselves as a destination to avoid these annoyances.

The media need to do a better job in separating facts from opinion.

Correlates to DCN’s discussion of vital drivers of trust. Premium content should be in-depth, respected, expert and authentic. These are the definitions of trust that move the needle.

Build a more representative media – in terms of age, politics, economic outlook, and gender – is likely to help answer the criticism that media is only looking after the interests of the establishment (we don’t speak to diversification of reporting).

Building trust takes a strong commitment from publishers and platforms, alike, to develop a successful consumer relationship. It requires understanding and strategically implementing components and drivers of trust. Importantly, the need for self-monitoring is essential to ensure accurate and credible reporting is commonly practiced.

Industry-Research

Consumers demand increased transparency from tech platforms

November 1, 2017 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

Consumers are very familiar with digital recommendations. Suggestions online are a constant and come in all varieties from recommendations on new products to purchase, to new songs for your playlist, to new individuals to connect with to news posts in your newsfeed. As consumers spend more time on social platforms consuming content and expressing their views on just about everything, more data is collected, and more algorithms are employed to extract value from consumer information. However, consumers appear mystified as to what usage data tech platforms collect and how it’s parlayed into algorithms to impact their content results.

The Tow Center for Digital Journalism examines this question and others in their study, “Readers are hungry for news feed transparency.” In all, they conducted 13 focus groups across four cities with news consumers. The goal was to understand consumer usage and to clarify the role of algorithms in terms of tech platforms’ accountability and transparency, particularly in the distributed news environments.

Key findings include:

1. Tech platforms and news habits

Participants claim that their news and information consumption on tech platforms is more of a consequence and not their main intent upon visiting. They believe the ease and convenience of accessing news when visiting social platforms fuels this pattern of news consumption.

2. Algorithms

News audiences understand few details about platform algorithms. In fact, many participants have little awareness of algorithm usage. While, others see algorithms as filters for relevant content and personalization. Still others think their usage remains independent of algorithms and generally overestimate their degree of control on their news feeds. Interestingly, many participants said they are willing to leave tech platforms because of the lack of transparency with their algorithms and privacy practices.

3. Local news

Participants think local news has little to no visibility on tech platforms.

4. Brand

Audiences claim they can recognize publishers’ brands on platforms. They also admit to sharing fake news, thinking at the time it was accurate and truthful. Many participants identify what the Tow Center refers to as the “third-person effect.” According to the participants, they of course, recognize solid news brands but it’s “others” who do not and end up sharing fake news.

Participants link fake news to social platforms and place responsibility on them for allowing fraudulent information to be shared. While consumers debate platforms’ ethical responsibilities, they agree that offering ineffective solutions to identify fake news is not the answer. Further, audiences also see platforms as often having political biases. They think platforms are quite challenged in their ability to remain politically neutral.

5. Privacy on social platforms

Participants are concerned with tech platforms’ black box practices and lack of transparency, yet they appear resigned to the practice of data collection. Surprisingly, data collection is viewed as the price paid for accessing these platforms. Not surprisingly, the younger the participant, the more accepting of a platform’s data collection practices.

6. Business models

Participants acknowledge the value of news content; however, they often engage in practices to avoid publisher paywalls. The ease to which consumers can access news content on social platforms reinforces the practice of non-paid for content.

In terms of advertising, native advertising and the use of sponsored links such as “recommended links” or “partner content” is viewed with little trust and appears to carry negative views on the publisher.

The research suggests a necessary unveiling of algorithm practices for both publisher and tech platforms to maintain a trusted relationship with their audiences. It’s essential to offer tools and education to verify brands and the legitimacy of content and to unveil algorithms, tracking and privacy policies.

Industry-Research

Trusting News Project sets out to re-establish news media credibility and value

August 2, 2017 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

Fake news is the catch-phrase used by many today to discredit all types of news stories and media outlets. Fueled by social media, the term “fake news” pools all news media—be it respected or far from it—together. However, fake news is not about the inaccuracies of credible news journalists. It’s about setting a specific agenda to distort information and deceive readers with the purpose of a deriving a specific action or outcome. It’s an attack on the truth. And it’s an affront to trustworthy news journalists.

The Reynolds Journalist Institute (RJI) created the Trusting News Project to help confront this attack and enhance the credibility of news journalists. The project was launched to create a dialogue between the news media and the consumer. To get started, 28 newsrooms partnered to asked their audiences (a total of 8,728 respondents) about their views on the credibility of news in order to understand the brands they trust and distrust, what they pay for and why.

Who Trusts Whom and Why?

In total, 70% of respondents report subscribing to one or more news products. Overall, more than two-thirds (67%) of respondents are likely and very likely to trust mainstream journalism organizations. On the opposite end of the spectrum, 33% of say that they are unlikely or very unlikely to trust the news.

Interestingly, those consumers who identified as liberals are more likely to both trust and pay for the news than those who identified as conservatives. Not surprisingly, older respondents are more likely to pay for the news, across both politics and race.

Consider the Source

The most trusted news source mentions (based on opened ended top three choices) are:

The Economist
Public television
Reuters
BBC
NPR
PBS
The Guardian
The Wall Street Journal
Los Angeles Times
The Dallas Morning News
The Blaze

The least trusted new source mentions (based on opened ended bottom three choices) are:

Occupy Democrats
BuzzFeed
Breitbart
Social media
Trump
Infowars
Yahoo
Internet
Huffington Post
The Blaze

The Trusting News Project also asked respondents to identify their political ideology based on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (very conservative) to 5 (very liberal). The self-reported estimates allowed for the scoring of media news outlet by political ideology.

As expected, cited media sources closely align with respondents’ political views. For example, the users who mentioned Rachel Maddow as a trusted source were an average of about 1.35 points more liberal than the scale’s norm. Liberals most often cited The New York Times, NPR, and The Washington Post as trusted, while the brand most listed by conservatives was Fox News.

The Trusting News Project is building strategies to help consumers re-establish trust with news media brands. Identifying and understanding audiences, especially by political ideology, allows newsrooms to inform their approaches to further demonstrate their trustworthiness.

Industry-Research

Privacy and transparency practices are on the rise for many sites

July 12, 2017 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

This year, for the first time, more than half (52%) of the 1,000 sites monitored by the Online Trust Alliance (OTA) qualified for the Honor Roll. The OTA Honor Roll is awarded to those sites reaching a score of 80% or higher overall with no failures in any one of the three core categories (consumer protection, security and privacy protection practice). One of the primary roles of the OTA is to raise the level of digital data security and privacy and to enhance online trust.

The 1,000 sites included in the 2017 OTA Honor Roll audit:

Internet Retailer Top 500
Top 100 Banks
Top 100 U.S. Federal Government sites
Top 100 Consumer Service sites
Top 100 News and Media sites
Top 100 ISPs, Carriers & Hosters (new this year)
OTA Member Organizations

Top performers in the 2017 OTA Honor Roll:

76% of the Top 100 consumer service sites make the Honor Roll. This segment accounted for 26 of the top 50 consumer-facing sites (52%).
51% of the top 500 Internet retailers made the Honor Roll, a 44% increase from last year. This segment accounted for 10 of the top 50 consumer-facing sites (20%).
48% of news and media sites made the Honor Roll this year, registering a significant improvement compared to last year across all industries. In 2016, only 26% of media and news sites made honor roll making it the worst performing segment. This segment accounts for three of the top consumer-facing 50 sites (6%).
46% of ISPs, carriers, hosters & email providers made the Honor Roll. This segment accounts for seven of the top 50 consumer-facing sites (14%).
39% of audited U.S. federal government sites made the Honor Roll, declining from last year when 46% sites made the honor roll. Important to note, 60% of Government sites received a failing grade.
27% of FDIC 100 banks made the Honor Roll, a significant decline from last year at 55%. The decline is mainly due to increases in breaches, low privacy scores and low levels of email authentication. A full 65% of FDIC 100 Banks received a failing grade.

Overall, failures varied widely by sector. In total, 46.5% of all sites failed in one or more area. Top failures included inadequate email authentication (55%) of the Fed 100 and inadequate privacy policies (34%) of the banking sector. Interestingly, consumer sites demonstrated a much higher level of transparency in their privacy disclosures with only 4% failing here.

With the General Data Protection Regulation GDPR implementation deadline approaching in Europe (May 25, 2018), it’s important for all participants to have a readiness plan. This requires revisiting security risks, disclosures and related privacy practices.

The OTA recommended best practices include:

Implement both Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM) for top-level domains, “parked” domains (not used for email) and any major subdomains seen on websites or used for email.
Optimize SPF records with no more than 10 DNS lookups.
Implement Domain-based Message Authentication (DMARC), initially in “monitor” mode to get receiver feedback and verify accuracy of email.
Mandate the use of DMARC reporting capabilities with RUA (addresses to which aggregate feedback is to be sent) and RUF (addresses to which message-specific forensic information is to be reported) reporting.
Implement inbound email authentication checks and DMARC on all networks to help protect against malicious email and spear phishing purporting to come from legitimate senders.
Ensure that domains are locked to prevent domain takeovers.
Implement opportunistic TLS to protect email in transit between mail servers.
Implement Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) to help protect a site’s DNS (Domain Name Servers) infrastructure.
Deploy Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6).
Implement Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) mitigation technologies and processes.
Implement multi-factor authentication.

It’s important for organizations of all types to adopt responsible practices in privacy and data stewardship to ensure a positive user experience.

Advertising | Perspectives | Video

Three key advertising takeaways from Cannes Lions

July 10, 2017 Tim Mahlman, President, Ad Platforms—Oath

The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity wrapped recently, and there was plenty for advertisers and marketers to chew on as they departed the French Riviera. Throughout the event, several themes emerged that seem poised to shape the rest of the year. Here’s a closer look at three in particular, based upon conversations we had with attending clients and partners.

Advertisers want more brand safety.

In the digital environment, which is a relatively open ad ecosystem, brand safety has always been top-of-mind for advertisers and agencies. Recently, given very public challenges for some platforms, brand safety is now front-and-center in conversations between brands, agencies and their technology partners. We saw this dynamic emerge at the NewFronts. And it continued – and accelerated – at Cannes.

Many platforms have responded by touting Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities for weeding out offensive content. But that’s only part of the solution. The most practical fix is for advertisers to work with trusted sources of premium inventory that can combine their supply with leading-edge quality control tools and technology. This is the most effective means of delivering true peace of mind for advertisers and boost brand safety.

Trust and accountability remain hot topics.

Trust and accountability were part of every discussion at Cannes. It’s clear that advertisers want and deserve deeper insight into how agency and technology partners act on their behalf. They want to know how their money is being spent. P&G is a good example. It announced a review of all media agency contracts this year to extract a broader transparency commitment and more granular data insights from “murky” agency and publisher relationships. That resonated at Cannes, where every buyer was calling for greater accountability across the digital ecosystem. Candidly, we think we led the discussion in how to get there.

It starts with the technology vendors and platforms. Advertising technology is the backbone of the industry. So, as supportive partners and category stewards, we have to take the lead and build and refine our services to deliver accountability. Third-party verification of inventory sources and attribution metrics is a first step. But beyond that, platforms need to be proactive, providing buyers with greater access to attribution data, making their technology stacks both vendor and media agnostic, and offering more programmatic transparency in areas like fees, CPMs and bids.

Immersive experiences are taking off.

Brand safety and accountability are critical. But at the end of the day, helping an advertiser engage their core audience effectively matters the most. To that end, “immersive experiences” were a centerpiece of this year’s event in Cannes, with an emphasis on mobile video.

Smartphones continue to grow as a screen of choice for video, rivaling desktop viewership consistently year-over-year. At Oath, we recently conducted a global study that found nearly 60% of all consumers watch videos on their mobile phones every day. We are very close to the tipping point where mobile will soon be the number one video screen. What’s more, the rate at which consumers are adopting immersive, mobile-enabled video formats like VR, 360-degree video and live video, are surging. These types of experiences help brands reach their audiences in new and unique ways, through interactive storytelling. The technology to deliver immersion at scale has also improved, just as the audience’s appetite for immersive content has exploded.

Brand safety, accountability, and immersive experiences will continue to dominate industry discussions over the next several months. It will be interesting to see how they shape the ecosystem in the second half of the year.

Currently President, Ad Platforms at Oath, Tim has more than 20 years of online advertising experience living in Asia, Europe and the United States specializing in digital advertising platforms, data analytics and programmatic exchange-based technology. As President of Adtech Platforms, Tim’s role is to oversee all of the Demand and Supply Side engineering, product and business divisions that comprises of One by AOL, Brightroll, Flurry and Convertro, among others.

Tim came to AOL from the acquisition of Vidible where he was the founder. As CEO, he oversaw the Video Content Exchange Platform that streamlined the way video content owners syndicate their content to publishers. While incubating Vidible, Tim was an Entrepreneur in Residence with Greycroft Ventures, advising portfolio companies such as Klout, Livefyre, elicit and Collective Media.

Innovation | Perspectives

Axios and The New York Times explore new business models

June 15, 2017 Ron Miller—Independent Technology Journalist

The New York Times and Axios couldn’t be more different. The former is a venerable print newspaper founded in 1851 and finds itself in the midst of a digital transformation. The latter was born digital, launching online just last year.

While it breaks more than its fair share of news, The Times is well known for its detailed deep-dives on a variety of subjects from politics and business to cooking, sports, and book reviews. Axios, on the other hand, is the very essence of brevity concentrating on business, politics, and tech. Their stories quickly deliver the basics and let you move on with your busy life . (Though recently it has also branched out into media and science reporting.)

Yet for all these seeming differences, the two publications may have more in common than not. When it comes down to it, both want to earn consumers’ trust and loyalty by delivering quality journalism every day. And both are working on new models for delivering the news in a profitable digital package, however that manifests itself.

At this year’s TechCrunch Disrupt in New York City, Mark Thompson CEO of the Times and Mike Allen , co –founder and executive editor at Axios appeared onstage in separate interviews, and what they had to say offered a fascinating window into the changing face of the journalism business.

Short and Satisfying

Every journalist learns the ABCs – accuracy, brevity, clarity. Axios takes this seriously but, according to Allen, their focus starts with the brevity. “Traditional newspapers served their purpose in their day, but as we got busier, it was harder to make time to read,” he said. “The idea of Axios is how can we efficiently use your time and catch you up quickly.”

Discussing The Times’ transformation into a more digitally-centric property, Thompson admitted that mistakes were made along the way. But he feels confident that they have a much stronger digital offering today. He explained that in the 70s and 80s, the newspaper expanded into multiple different sections including lifestyles, food, fashion, and people came to think of The Times brand as representing much more than news and opinion.

However, he said “I think one of the missteps in a way was in digital—that the Times got typecast again to be just being about news, where in fact it’s about culture, travel, food and so on and so forth. We’re trying to [return to] the idea of a media provider who can help you with many aspects of your life, as well as giving you the best journalism in the world and a range of opinion,” he said.

A Trusted Source

Regardless of whether you are succinct or verbose, stick to the news or offer broader insights, you need to earn readers’ trust to take a share of their valuable time. And, as we move into an era of social media sharing and an ever-growing number of news sources competing for attention, earning and maintaining trust is increasingly difficult.

Allen points out that in previous generations there were a limited number of news sources, (including The New York Times). In those days, people tended to believe what these sources proffered as news. However, with ever proliferating “news” sources, increasingly disintermediated from the source itself through social media distribution, figuring out what’s true and what’s not has become challenging.

“Now, people – very understandably – don’t know what to believe, whom to trust.” So at Axios, he said “we hope to be a safe place where you can come. And it doesn’t matter where you are on the [political] spectrum, you are going to be able to very quickly see what reality is.”

Thompson sees delivering quality journalism as the natural path to building a loyal audience. Even though some readers may disagree with the message on a given day, the objective is to maintain The New York Times reputation as a trusted source.

“Being true to ourselves and our mission is the best way to build loyalty [with] our subscribers over time. And we have a passionate relationship with our subscribers. Even when they threaten to leave, evidence suggests they are back very soon,” Thompson said.

Building the Strategy

Regardless of the age of these two publications, they are working very hard to create digital products with long-term viability. As Thompson points out, a successful digital strategy needs to be an integration of content strategy and audience engagement.

“In a way, if you can get your audience engagement right, the actual business of turning an engaged audience into money is a very downstream, and in some ways, less difficult, less critical task,” he said. “The real task is getting people’s passionate engagement with the brand, with the content, and caring about you enough that they are willing to pay.”

Allen says that means avoiding what they call the ‘crap trap.’ “The crap trap is: If you’re just going for clicks, just going for a mass audience, you get pushed down. We are very focused on reaching people who are serious news consumers. These people who to know about something because they are curious and it helps them in their business and professions. That’s what we think about when we post something. We want to make sure it’s worthy of your time,” Allen explained.

Both of these publications are fighting for the same thing: trust, time, and attention. While their approaches may differ, their goals—and many of their underlying tenants—are remarkably similar.

Perspectives | Policy

A level playing field for companies and consumers

May 25, 2017 Chris Pedigo, SVP Government Affairs – DCN

Whether your browsing history should be private by default has become a key question in the past year. Shortly after the election, Congress repealed privacy rules that would have required broadband providers to get consent from consumers before they could share this consumer data with advertisers. Members of Congress noted that it was unfair to apply these rules only to the internet providers but not to other giant digital companies, including Facebook and Google. When Senators and Representatives returned to their home districts, however, they promptly got blasted by some of their constituents for appearing to protect the shady practices of cable companies.

Partly in response to the backlash, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) introduced the BROWSER Act. It’s a bill designed to level the playing field for companies that collect data about consumers at massive scale. And it is inclusive of all companies that are able to collect data across much of the web like ISPs, Google and Facebook. At the same time, the bill guarantees more transparency and choices for consumers. Ignore the shrill extremists in this debate. For good faith actors representing industry or consumer groups, there’s a lot to like about this bill.

In short, the bill would require companies to obtain opt-in consent from consumers before using “sensitive” data. This would include financial, location, and health information as well as browsing history and app usage. Some have argued browsing history and app usage shouldn’t rise to the level of sensitive information. However, common sense suggests otherwise. How would you feel if someone tried to buy and then publish a list of the websites you visit? In short, this bill says where you go in both the real and virtual worlds should remain private until you grant consent. I find it hard to argue with this.

The bill goes a step further in prohibiting companies from altering or denying service for consumers who do not opt-in. This provision is likely to draw the ire of industry lobbyists. But there’s a lot of merit in putting the onus on companies to develop a good “elevator pitch” for consumers. Companies that convince customers of the value to consumers are likely to be rewarded with their business—and trust.

The bill also requires a “clear and conspicuous” privacy policy that is easy to find. This generally codifies what is standard practice for good actors today. It’s unlikely that anyone can make a credible argument against providing transparency for consumers.

Finally, the bill designates enforcement authority to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). This is something that the entire cable lobby advocated for just a few months ago. Consumer advocates might want more robust enforcement tools for the FTC, but I question whether the federal rulemaking procedure is agile enough to adapt to changing technologies and business models. FTC guidance and enforcement cases can provide useful direction and clear lines for appropriate behavior.

To be clear, this is just the beginning of a long and uncertain legislative process. But, it’s an important development that Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), a conservative Republican with a decent amount of experience with tech issues, has moved down this path. The fact that a few voices at the edges of the spectrum are opposed means she probably got it exactly right.

Industry-Research

The fundamentals of media manipulation

May 24, 2017 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

A wired and collaborative culture makes it easy to manipulate the media and with it, public opinion. Today’s digital communication landscape offers a ready means for radicalized groups to bias the media spread their beliefs. Alice Marwick and Rebecca Lewis offer insightful context to media manipulation and disinformation in their powerful new report, Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online.

The report focuses on how internet subcultures use the media ecosystem to Influence the news and spread their ideas. It identifies who is involved, their motivations, and where they function online. This report is s a must-read in today’s fake news media environment.

Getting to know the bad actor(s) is the starting point. Often bad actors are identified as “alt-right” but Marwick and Lewis point out that this definition is limited. The bad actors include a mix of conspiracy theorists, techno-libertarians, white nationalists, men’s rights advocates, trolls, anti-feminists, anti-immigration activists, as well as bored young people.

Trolls

Trolling is a strategic tool used by bad actors. The goal of trolling is to incite responses in its targets, be it specific individuals or a group of like-minded people. This internet behavior involves commenting and sharing content and opinions with the intent to anger or frustrate the targeted in order to provoke a reaction.

Four unique characteristics of trolling include:

Deliberate use of offensive speech
Opposition toward sensationalism in the mainstream media
Generate emotional effect in targets
Maintain ambiguity

Conspiracy theorists often use trolling in their attempt to dominate the information on the internet to increases fears about a loss of control.

Currently, top fears include:

Loss of white majority in the U.S.
Islamophobia
Fear of immigration
Fear of the emasculation
Transphobia and homophobia
Fear of Jewish conspiracy

Memes and Bots

An internet meme is another powerful internet tool for galvanizing people around a core issue. A meme, often an image with a comment, portrays a slice of culture. Again, the goal is often provocation as the meme is shared and circulated online. When a distorted or radicalized meme goes viral, it’s a home-run for the bad actor’s team.

Social bots, software that creates content on social media to interact with people, are also significant manipulators of media. Bots can be used to increase the numbers of followers a government official has; or spread propaganda and false information. Often the believability of fake news is based on the number of comments or likes an article receives, which can be generated by bots. Bots can easily add the appearance of weight to the masquerade of fake news.

Conspiracy Theory

Notable online trolls and their conspiracy theorists act as powerful influencers of media manipulation. They have the power to amplify messaging and move marginal beliefs to major concerns in mainstream media. Marwick and Lewis identify two noted leaders in this realm: Richard Spencer, the white supremacist leader of the National Policy Institute and editor of altright.com and Milo Yiannopolous, the anti-feminist, anti-Islam media personality who was pressured to resign from The Breitbart Report. Social participation is encouraged to propagate radical beliefs in mainstream media. Several dedicated blogs, websites, forums and message boards where collaboration of the fringe is encouraged include:

Alex Jones’s Infowars – conspiracy theorist
Roosh V’s blog Return of Kings – men’s rights movement
The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website
Sub-threads in comment sections and forums of Right Stuff and The Daily Stormer;

Social Media

Mainstream sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, are also used to spread and amplify extreme messaging. Private groups find social media a fertile place to share thoughts on social networks of similar people. Using Twitter hashtags and Facebook’s like and share symbols allow individuals to rally troops of like-minded people.

Marwick’s and Lewis’ report provides insight into the current mistrusted media landscape. It offers a clear-eyed view as to how the far-right and other radicals are successful at spreading their messaging. It’s only after we understand of how fake news is create and amplified that we can begin to disband the culprits.

Industry-Research

Attitudes toward news media are fractured along party lines

May 17, 2017 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

Republicans and Democrats are more divided along ideological, educational, and generational lines than ever before. So, it’s no surprise that they trust and rely on different news sources. However, they also disagree on the news media’s purpose. Do news stories and analyses of current affairs help keep politicians honest or distract them from doing their jobs?

A new report from the Pew Research Center shows that 89% of Democrats say that the news media reports keeps political leaders in line, while only about 42% of Republicans say the same. That 47% gap, is significantly different from a year ago when roughly about three-quarters of both Democrats (74%) and Republicans (77%) backed the news media’s watchdog role.

In whom do we trust?

Still, trust in news and information is questionable these days. Only one-fifth of adults say they trust “a lot,” of the information they receive from national news organizations, 25% trust local news organizations and fewer than 15% trust information from family and friends. Social ranks last as a trusted news and information source with just 5% of U.S. adults. Yet we all know that social, i.e. Facebook, is often quoted as a major news source.

Among these four sources, one-third of Democrats (34%) report “a lot” of trust in news and information from national news organizations compared to 11% of Republicans. For local news, approximately 36% of Democrats trust the local news media “a lot,” compared to 24% of Republicans.

Americans are also paying closer attention to national news compared to 2016. Four-in-ten U.S. Adults report following national news very closely, up from one-third last year. Nearly three-quarters of Americans (72%) report that news organizations tend to support one side in presenting news on political and social issues. In contrast, only a little over one-quarter of digital news users think the news media deals fairly with all sides. Specifically, more than half of those identifying as Democrats (53%) report that the news media tends to favor one side compared to 87% of Republicans.

Pew’s trending data shows it’s not unusual for Americans who support the President’s political party to be less likely to support the watchdog role of media. Still, the current gap is far wider than at any prior point over the past three decades.

News travels

As overall mobile usage increased this year, so did news consumption on mobile, with almost half of U.S. adults (45%) getting their news often on a mobile device, a 9% increase from a year ago. Among those who get news on both mobile and desktop, nearly two-thirds (65%) prefer mobile access to digital news over desktop access.

Overall, 73% of digital media users report that the national news media does well keeping them informed (21% “very well” and 54% “fairly well”). However, when looking at political orientation, 33% of Democrats report that the national media does “very well” at informing them, compared to 18% of Republicans.”

Importantly, when judging if a news story is trustworthy, about half of U.S. adults say the source of the story (51%) and the story’s publisher (48%) have “a large impact” on the assessment, followed by a gut instinct (30%) and the person who shared (26%) the story.

The insights from this study are especially important to publishers whose digital content is progressively reaching readers outside their own websites and apps. A publisher’s commitment to quality content produces value for its readers. While this may not cross partisan lines, it provides an accurate and level-playing field to strengthen the trusted relationship publishers and reader.

Advertising | Perspectives

Advertising’s flight to trusted partners

May 11, 2017 Jason Kint, CEO – DCN

Fun fact: 96% of TSA Precheck passengers wait less than five minutes in line. This innovation is no less than a modern marvel created to save valuable time during an unprecedented increase in security. Meanwhile travelers “unknown” to TSA are relegated to the slow lane removing their shoes, pulling out liquids and laptops, and assuming the position to be body-scanned.

Now imagine for a moment that precheck has been eliminated. Every. Single. Passenger has to be hand-frisked, one at a time in a Single. File. Line. It would rip out the remaining thread of joy in air travel. You would scream. I would scream. There would be a collective cry of despair from travelers across America.

That’s what we see happening in our digital advertising industry today.

“Brand safety” is the latest float in the parade of ad tech problems. I know we’ve seen it before but it’s back with a vengeance. Unfortunately, we’re also seeing a rerun of ad tech firms trotting out “brand safety” filters. Some have even suggested that their tech can work like an ad blocker to prevent the advertisement from loading in an “unsafe environment.” Oh dear. This baggage needs to be hand-searched for restricted materials. Please step out of the line and join the security officer for a reality check.

The security firm White Ops stated in its 2015 Bot Benchmark Study, which analyzed fraud, that the real answers to advertising problems lie in the economics rather than the technology. We thought this was a fairly astute perspective, particularly from technology people.

Advertisers don’t need another layer of technology. Instead, they need transparency so that they know where their ads and money are going. This same approach can apply to solving for nearly every issue in digital advertising. Spend your advertising investments with publishers you know, and you’ll eliminate most of your issues.

Just a few weeks ago, JP Morgan Chase shone a sparkle of sunlight across our beleaguered industry by doing something so simple that there is no way anyone in the Silicon Valley would propose it. They had humans (remember them?) evaluate publishers for their campaign. These people whittled down the targeted sites on which their ads appeared from 400,000 to less than 5,000. The campaign had the same results. I repeat: same results.

Rather than treat every single ad impression as if it’s a random collection of pixels on an unfamiliar page of an unknown website, marketers who seek out trusted publishers already have the advantage of knowing their ads are likely to be viewed by an engaged audience in clean, well-lit environments. By this so-called “whitelisting” of sites, they’re undertaking the equivalent of the “Known Traveler” program: I know your site because it has been carefully evaluated. We can accelerate the process and I won’t need to slow you down with a pat down. In fact, we can speed you right through with a smile on your face.

I sense a movement from marketers (and audiences) towards trusted publishers. In this brighter future, viewability vendors, IVT vendors, and brand safety vendors are all unnecessary when working with quality publishers like the members of DCN. Instead, advertisers can confidently say “I know them and I don’t need to waste my time and money with layers of security measures that will hinder the experience.”

Keep your laptop in the bag. No need to remove your belt, jacket, or shoes. Let’s make this trip fast and fabulous.