The most significant opportunity in more than a decade to steer value towards our members is playing out now in Europe.
It is DCN’s role to help shape the future of the digital ecosystem to bend towards the interests of trusted content companies while your team focuses on the day-to-day operations. We work every day to do this and to raise the bar of trust with both advertisers and consumers. Unlike other parts of the web media industry, we’re fortunate these efforts often align. That is, by increasing trust for consumers and advertisers, the brands of DCN will prosper in the long-term. We are starting to see the pendulum swing in our favor – both in consumer subscriptions and the trust and transparency of the advertising market – and are working hard to accelerate it.
Since DCN exclusively represents content companies, we occasionally have a different point of view from other parts of the media ecosystem including intermediaries (e.g. ad tech companies, Google, Facebook). The business model of these intermediaries has for many years relied on harvesting the data generated from advertiser and consumer relationships with our members’ websites and apps. Right now, there is significant debate over how to best participate in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the EU and what the effects of the roll-out of will be. The rules of GDPR, which set a new bar for consumer privacy, were finalized years ago and since that time have inspired a rich amount of misinformation, disagreement and fear, only increasing as the GDPR enforcement date of May 25, 2018 approaches.
The IAB and IAB Europe, which are charged with representing a much broader set of stakeholders including hundreds of ad tech companies, Google, Facebook, Oath, and many others with significant intermediary interests, has released its plan to handle the GDPR roll-out. The IAB framework, which was submitted for industry commenting, was clearly designed by ad tech companies and included endorsement from 23 ad tech companies and, most notably, zero publishers.
Details will be discussed in other forums but can be summarized as it:
relies on cookies which are unreliable in many experiences;
pushes all liability to the publisher without providing any control over the CMPs, SSPs, DSPs, exchanges and how they use this data;
outsources the consent relationship with the user to a “Consent Manager Provider” (CMP) operated by an IAB-friendly;
does not leverage the direct relationship between a publisher and its audience to manage consent and store it persistently in the browser (e.g. DNT);
fails to reduce friction for users giving consent for purposes most important to publishers and most acceptable to users;
unintentionally creates more friction with your audience for editorial and product features for the sake of protecting ad tech vendors.
Thus, it will most likely enable a practical use case where global consent is enacted to protect the status quo of maximum behaviorally-targeted advertising and unbridled data collection. In other words, their goal is to use “free” services to encourage users to click, “Turn All On” and opt back into the status quo.
Please reach out to us directly and make certain your business leaders and partners understand there are serious flaws with the IAB Consent Framework. We strongly urge publishers to hold off signing up with the 23 companies (and Google and Facebook behind the scenes) to support the framework in its current form.
Once again, there is a window here in which publishers can rebuild consumer and advertiser trust. The most significant advertisers in the world are aligned with us on this as they begin to see their pursuit of truly one-to-one advertising across the wider web as economically and legally challenging. GDPR will create opportunity for audience selection based on cohorts and context which is a significant risk to Google and Facebook. GDPR moves advertisers away from their current buying habits supported by the myth they can simply harvest demand through microtargeting personal data. Creating new demand through context and true relevance is the sweet spot of trust and true publishers.
And where there is significant risk to Facebook and Google and opportunity for growing consumer trust, you will come out ahead.
Strategies for differentiating their premium news and entertainment companies in an environment of disruption, trust issues, and monetization challenges were the focus of the annual closed-door members-only Digital Content Next (DCN) Summit held Feb. 8-9 in Miami, Florida.
DCN CEO Jason Kint updated attendees on consumer privacy, net neutrality, and press freedom policy initiatives. He said that pressure on platforms will increase this year and that advertisers will seek greater transparency. Kint cited findings from DCN’s new Distributed Content Revenue Benchmark Report, which found that publishers only garner 5% of their revenue from social platforms. However, he also touched upon the growth in paid content, on-demand video, and promising signs of sustainable advertising models.
Trust
For the digital media industry, Trust has reached a crisis level, Kint said. He and other speakers throughout the event pointed to the 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer, which reveals a low consumer perception of the media, platforms, and advertisers—particularly around digital.
An absence of trust has been a driving factor toward regulatory scrutiny in the U.S. and abroad. It has also profoundly affected digital advertising, one of the mainstays of the industry. Kint applauded DCN members for embracing DCN’s new tool for rebuilding trust: TrustX. The cooperative private programmatic marketplace serves as a collaboration platform for marketers and publishers to create innovative advertising solutions that drive measurable value and improve the consumer experience with confidence and safety at scale.
Kint was far from alone in extolling the importance of trust in the digital content marketplace, however. Fatemeh Khatibloo, principal analyst at Forrester Research cited the building blocks for trust, which include integrity, competence, transparency, privacy, and data security.
David Sable, Global Chief Executive Officer, Y&R, noted that trusted brands employ honesty, environmental sustainability, and kindness. He also pointed out that millennials are keen to identify trusted news sources. Building trust starts early, according to Sean Cohen, president, International and Digital Media, A+E Networks, citing how brands such as the History Channel have become a trusted source for students.
Brian Stelter, Katy Tur, Arianna Davis, and Jorge Ramos
While Edelman’s barometer noted a five-point jump in trust of journalists, a social media-weaponized world has given way to readers and viewers expressing anger, often anonymously and without consequences, as vividly reported by a panel of journalists— Arianna Davis of Refinery29, Jorge Ramos of Noticiero Univision, CNN’s Brian Stelter, and Katy Tur of MSNBC Live.
Brand Quality and Context
People won’t pay for brands that don’t focus on quality, noted Andrew Essex, former CEO of Tribeca Enterprises and Droga5 [pictured, top]. Quartz President and Publisher Jay Lauf also emphasized value-based selling over commodified volume selling.
Context is critical, he said, adding that marketers “are terrified” about ads appearing on an exploitive YouTube video or inadvertently funding fake news on Facebook. And Hearts & Science research on negative reach confirms advertising appearing next to content a consumer finds offensive does more harm than good according to the agency’s president Zak Treuhaft.
Sean Cohan, President, International and Digital Media, A+E Networks & Jason Kint, CEO, Digital Content Next
And, in a world dominated by memes and disembodied news delivered via social platforms, “Context is king,” according to Sean Cohan, President, International and Digital Media, A+E Networks. For example, he pointed to the History brand’s increased emphasis on providing a larger historical context for today’s news, such as the history of sports figures’ involvement in political protests.
Disruption and Opportunity
Disruption has led to a competitive marketplace imbalance as DCN member companies try to transform their business models, as Kint noted. At the same time, disruptive technologies, such as voice assistants, can create significant opportunities.
Loren Mayor, COO, NPR, spoke of the station’s mission to connect with people through storytelling journalism and is using on-demand audio and podcasting to enhance audience growth and engagement.
Smarter use of data and respectful personalization were subjects that came up in a number of conversations and presentations. More-informed data will help drive value, according to Lou Paskalis, SVP, Enterprise Media Planning, Investment and Measurement Executive, Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Marcus East, EVP & Chief Technology Officer, National Geographic
Marcus East, EVP, Product & Technology/CTO, National Geographic, said that successful brands create personalized experiences and help consumers save time and money, create emotional connections, offer life-changing elements, and promote positive social impact.
That said, in today’s uncertain digital environment, the hallmarks of reputable journalism have reemerged as critical for consumer trust and attention. Michael Anastasi, VP News, USA Today Network, Tennessee pointed to importance of the Indianapolis Star’s investigative coverage of U.S. Olympic gymnastics doctor Dr. Larry Nassar, which stands out in a time of local news outlets’ survival uncertainties.
Anastasi said that USA Today leverages its local/national symbiosis on to inform some of its stories. He cited the brand’s coverage of the opioid crisis across all platforms—and with national, local, and individual ramifications. The comprehensive coverage was made possible through a sponsorship from BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee.
In addressing financial sustainability in non-profit journalism, ProPublica President Richard Tofel noted significant growth in donation-based revenues since the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The non-profit model seems to be working for ProPublica as Tofel said that they launched with a staff of 25 nine and a half years ago and now number more than 100.
Diversification and Monetization
Ed Davis, EVP & CPO, Advertising Products, Fox Networks Group
Unsurprisingly, revenue was a key topic at the Summit. And while advertising remains a critical focus, diversification was a dominant theme. In all aspects of monetization, good consumer experience and engagement were essential. As Ed Davis, EVP & CPO Advertising Products, Fox Networks Group put it: “Attention is currency.”
Maggie McLean Suniewick, President, NBCUniversal Digital Enterprises & Tracy Corrigan, Chief Strategy Officer, Dow Jones
Maggie McLean Suniewick, President, NBCUniversal Digital Enterprises, showed off the many ways the company’s Olympic coverage is tapping into a wide range of platforms to engage target audiences wherever they might be. Bloomberg Media’s initiatives include global partnerships that help it transcend the competitive U.S. market according to Scott Havens, Global Head of Digital, Bloomberg Media. And The Washington Post has launched 15 products specifically designed to engage consumer interaction according to Jarrod Dicker, The Post’s VP of Innovation and Commercial.
The History Channel is leaning into new platforms and partners with The New York Times on stories and photo spreads. Sean Cohan, President, International and Digital Media, A+E Networks said that the company is seeing doubled social engagement, significant newsletter interest, and substantial boosts in YouTube video revenues.
Marty Moe, Vox Media President, said his company focuses on finding ways to grow quality, scale, and audience across its eight brands while retaining relevancy on each platform. However, diversification brings challenges such as tracking and measuring performance on multiple platforms, noted Christy Tanner, EVP & GM, CBS News Digital CBS interactive.
Dr. Jens Mueffelmann, CEO, Axel Springer Digital Ventures GmbH, President, Axel Springer USA, said his company’s success in global acquisitions is based on later-stage investment, development and partnership. While its successful classified ad profits have stunned critics, Mueffelmann urged companies to “stay paranoid” and continue to keep a close eye on emerging digital technologies and players.
On the heels of the news that The New York Times added 157,000 digital subscriptions in the 2017 fourth quarter, pushing its subscription revenues – which comprise 60% of overall revenues – to more than $1 billion, COO Meredith Kopit Levien encouraged everyone to get into the subscription business. It’s important to understand what drives subscribers, she said. For The New York Times, it’s the resources to create better original content, including 250 daily stories, a popular crossword puzzle and a cooking app, she said, noting “our strength is as a brand.”
While challenges in trust, brand quality, disruption and diversification continue to throw roadblocks up in the news and entertainment industry, Kint emphasized that for DCN members, there is strength in numbers, citing The New York Times’ subscription victory as a victory for all DCN members because of what it symbolizes for the industry.
At the core, DCN members are focusing on what they do best and continue to innovate and experiment in order to best serve audiences.
“All of our members have a direct and trusted relationship with your audience and with your advertisers,” Kint told the packed conference room. “They come to your brands because they know what they’re going to get when they give you their valued attention or valued advertising dollars.”
Public trust in the media is at an all-time low, yet Americans still believe that the media plays an important role in today’s democracy. A new report from Gallup and The Knight Foundation, “American Views: Trust, Media and Democracy,” reveals that more than eight in 10 Americans (84%) believe the media either has a “critical” (44%) or a “very important” (40%) role in democracy. So, if journalism is essential to the foundation of democracy, why is its trust in such a fractured state today?
The Gallup/Knight Foundation research provides several insights to this question. The research identifies the spread of inaccurate information on the internet as one of eight leading consumer concerns. In fact, three-quarters of Americans (73%) state the “spread of inaccurate information” as their top concern, with young adults, ages 18-29, highest at 80%. Consequently, adult’s top concern centers on the “distribution” of false news and information.
Share and Share Alike?
The spread of false news and information is further intensified by the sharing and forwarding of news stories, a common practice among consumers today. In particular, social media offers an easy and accessible gateway to share information. Close to two-thirds of Americans (64%) state they frequently/occasionally share news stories with friends, family, or social media followers.
The Gallup/Knight research suggests that Americans are beginning to recognize the pitfalls of social sharing when ideological viewpoints and biasness are not always vetted properly to ascertain credibility. In fact, more U.S. adults believe that citizen videos (58%), the internet (57%), news aggregators (54%), and cable news (52%) have a more positive impact on the U.S. news environment than social media (42%) sites like Facebook and Twitter and political leaders using social media to directly communicate to users.
What exactly do consumer view as fake news?
The Gallup/Knight Foundation defines fake news as “misinformation with the appearance of legitimately produced news but without the underlying organizational journalistic processes or mission.” The research found that consumers have a broader sense of fake news and include: presenting false information as if true, reporting stories before facts are checked, slanting stories to depict a specific point of view and accurate stories showcasing political views negatively.
Whose Views?
With so many news sources available, Americans find it hard to stay up to date and informed. Interestingly, even with numerous news outlets, consumers report difficulty finding a balanced source. Four in ten respondents (44%) state that they cannot name an objective source. While consumers also seek news aggregators, more than half of users (57%) are concerned with their method of story collection. Most often these hidden algorithms are not shared.
U.S. adults also recognized political affiliation as a large influencer on the views of the news media. More than half of democratic respondents (54%) report a very or somewhat favorable opinion of the news media. However, the opposite can be said of republican respondents, where more than two-thirds (68%) view the news media in an unfavorable light. Further, respondents report confusion when it comes to sorting out the facts (41%). Democrats tend to be informed about current events and more confident that they can sort out the facts (52%). Republicans on the other hand are more skeptical about sorting out the facts are Republicans (52%)
While Americans have access to more news media outlets than ever before, it a complex ecosystem to navigate. Distribution, aggregation and technology are all strong influencers of the news as well contributing to the proliferation of misinformation in the public domain. Supporting trustworthy publishers and journalists is more important than ever before so that they can distil accurate information and weed out the inaccurate in order to safeguard the democracy of the media.
“At this point, I start from a position of distrust in dealing with Facebook as a company.”
Regrettably, I found myself sharing these thoughts last Friday with reporters who were working around the clock to process the latest Facebook news. And I’m not alone. Even the most trusting publishers have gone from giving Facebook the benefit of the doubt when they rolled out Instant Articles a few years ago, to a “prove it” mentality today.
This is unfortunate considering the power and influence that Facebook has on our lives. Like it or not, Facebook is effectively the largest public square where nearly two billion people around the world gather to exchange information. And there is certainly merit to the argument that the world benefits from the success of Facebook’s experiment to create an open and connected world.
So, what changed?
Business as Usual
Ben Thompson wonderfully captured the heart of the question several years ago, “Even if Zuckerberg is right, is there anyone who believes that a private company run by an unaccountable all-powerful person that tracks your every move for the purpose of selling advertising is the best possible form said global governance should take?”
Our industry is at an important crossroads. In many ways, the Facebook announcement to reorder News Feed priorities isn’t very different from Google’s early shifts and changes (remember Panda?). Many times search engines have been more impactful to the finances of publishers than anything a publisher could control directly. But really, despite some early utopian proclamations, these platforms are just doing business as usual. They lean in heavily to innovation that aligns with their own business interests and has a positive product outcome while slow-walking anything that creates risk to their own financial interests. Why wouldn’t they?
Yesterday, I sent an email to the members of DCN that was quite critical of Facebook. Implicit in my concern is the parallel that can be drawn to Google (something I highlighted in a Washington Post op-ed last October). These two companies are the front door to information for billions of people. So, when they make a tweak or announce a significant shift, the entire information industry needs to pay close attention.
We are paying attention.
Moonshots, Money and Responsibility
Unlike business as usual, “moonshots” are intended to drive real break-throughs that go beyond the horizon of the more cautious bets constrained to basic organizational needs or that don’t inject risk into the cash cows. Last November, we asked Google and Facebook for moonshot-level thinking and initiative to address the fake news and other garbage flowing through their platforms. Yes, the fake news was starting to erode the solid foundation our members’ business is built upon. But the problems go well beyond business. The issues in play resonate deeply through our society.
To put it bluntly, both companies have failed to step up to the task. As a result, there are increasing levels of tension in the press, in Washington, and in Brussels as this distrust spreads. And this isn’t good for anyone.
There are two platform pressures that work against trusted publishers and, importantly, public interest:
Platforms are biased towards solving problems for the lowest-common denominator “publisher” so the solutions can be applied to the wider web. This often creates collateral damage for publishers playing the long game – cultivating brand and engaging customers – and not just focused on immediate financial gain. We’re seeing the impact now as Google attempts to solve for ad blocking or how the industry has dealt with measurement issues.
Platforms also have incredible growth expectations, as they really have one goal to surpass Apple as the most valuable company on the planet. These revenue and profit obligations create an inherent bias toward their own products. In fact, the European Commission already found Google guilty of this. Facebook will always drive consumer intent and publisher interests to the most profitable outcomes. This is why video was Facebook’s #1 priority last year. And now it’s not.
There are also two big issues that affect the entire ecosystem and, importantly, public interest:
Americans don’t trust “the media.” In fact, they trust it less and less each day. The research says they do appropriately trust many of our members and the journalists and creatives they employ. However, what Americans think of as “the media” continues to change and now includes platforms, distributors, advertising technologies, artists, advertisers, and publisher brands. And the public doesn’t separate or even understand where the buck stops with each. Every ounce of research I’ve seen shows that more and more consumers are going to places like Google, YouTube, and Facebook to get their news and information despite trusting these platforms significantly less than other outlets. This distrust in platforms and ad technologies extends into the media at large.
Facebook and Google are the two most significant sources of traffic to publishers. Facebook drives about 17% of the inbound visits to DCN members; Both companies share less than 1% of their revenue with DCN members. They are very important for the discovery of news and entertainment. Yet they feel it is very unimportant to pay for the creation of it.
These gaps aren’t going to be closed through hearings in Washington. They’re also not going to be closed by walking away from dialogue. Ultimately, we need major platforms to decide that moonshots matter and be both humble enough and comfortable enough with their own vulnerabilities to work with publishers and academics on solutions. I don’t see that happening yet but I believe that we’ll get there in time. It’s just that important.
Given the abundance of options for today’s digitally-savvy consumers, it has never been more important to understand their preferences and expectations in order to best serve their needs and retain their business. The intersection of privacy and personalization is a particularly tricky spot to navigate. Today’s consumers are more worried about data privacy than they are about losing their income. At the same time, they expect increasingly personalized digital experiences. There is only one way to bridge that divide, according to the 2017 Accenture Strategy Global Consumer Pulse Research: Build Trust.
Accenture’s research, which surveyed 24,877 consumers in 33 countries, found that 48% of consumers expect specialized treatment for being a good customer. And Accenture believes that this entails “next generation personalization” which they call “hyper-relevance.” Many current personalization tactics are static and relate to certain consumer behaviors. However, Hyper-relevance—like today’s digital consumers—is “always on.” It is much more dynamic, constantly changing and always available.
rather than focusing solely on customers’ purchase behaviors and preferences or relatively fixed attributes, such as their address or number of children, Accenture says it is essential to understand on customers’ needs in a given circumstance and the evolving context in which they make decisions.
As such, data gathered from website visits, social media posts, or previous purchase histories will not suffice. Rather, what’s needed is information that is much more personal in nature—such as health data transmitted via wearable biometric technologies. Needless to say, that’s getting highly personal. And when things get that personal, the potential rewards go up immensely. However, risk also rises.
It is heartening to note that two-thirds of those surveyed said that they are willing to share personal information with companies. But there’s a catch. They will only do so in exchange for some perceived value. And if that value exchange—or the trust upon which it is based—is broken, customers will quickly move on.
Accenture emphasizes that securing and maintaining consumer trust is a prerequisite to achieving the promise of intelligent personalization. They point out that it takes time to build trust, but that it can be shattered with one wrong move. Thus, companies must counter that risk by constantly presenting themselves as trustworthy, keeping their promises, and upholding their end of the value exchange agreement.
As companies seek to deliver hyper-relevance, Accenture makes three recommendations:
1. Look beyond the traditional customer journey
Companies that distinguish themselves with hyper-relevant experiences look beyond the traditional customer journey. They identify and prioritize those areas where hyper-relevance can deliver added value and quickly address the unexpected. Ask questions like: What can we offer once we realize our customer has missed her flight? Received a job promotion? Been forced to flee a hurricane? In these situations, customers need different things and relevance becomes supremely important.
2. Rethink data
Hyper-relevant companies don’t rely solely on descriptive analytics or traditional sources of information. They invest in predictive analytics, collaborate with an ecosystem of stakeholders to capture real-time snapshots of every consumer, and mine data in new ways to understand the customer journey that extends beyond core products and services and across channels. In addition, hyper-relevant companies redouble their data security efforts. They ensure customers have full control of their data across touch points. They eliminate duplicate requests for customer information and permissions. And they make sure all customer data is secure and visible to employees on a need-to-know basis.
3. Earn trust continuously
Trust must be a key consideration when designing hyper-relevant experiences, creating new customer value propositions, and serving as a critical resource when customers need them most. A company’s commitment to delivering the experiences that were promised and meeting customers’ expectations is paramount. Hyper-relevant companies understand their baseline level of trust, and eliminate issues or irrelevant offers that detract from the trust quotient. They make trust sustainable by establishing a rigorous process and a robust, cross-functional governance structure to continuously measure trust and hyper-relevant effectiveness—and act on their findings. Most importantly, they manage trust as the critical growth enabler it is.
The virtuous circle
Companies that are attentive to their customers’ concerns and reinforce their trust quotient are more likely to persuade customers to share personal information. That, in turn, helps to inform the design the kinds of hyper-relevant experiences that today’s consumers expect. So, while companies are finding valuable ways to leverage data to super-serve their best customers, they have also begun to realize that the digital trust consumers place in companies is as critical as the data itself.
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.
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.
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.
Source: Reuters Institute
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
