In an era where media consumption shapes opinions and influences culture, the spotlight is on media businesses being more inclusive and diverse in their content and practices to better serve audiences. DCN’s new Digital Media Audience Diversity Study finds that content that strikes a chord with diverse audience segments leads to heightened audience engagement. Such content can cement a company’s position in a fiercely competitive landscape and facilitate monetization.
The study examines the attitudes, values, and behaviors of different generational segments and racial, ethnic, and identity (REI) cohorts in the context of digital media. To accomplish this, a survey was conducted among 1,500 respondents ― proportionally across Gen Z, Gen Y, and Gen X segments and each segment included Black, Latino, Asian, LGBTQ+, and White populations.
Representation matters
The findings uncover the perspectives and preferences of how respondents engage with digital media content, their subscription practices, their relationship to ad-supported content, and their views on representation and portrayal.
In this regard, the study underscores the importance of incorporating inclusivity, diverse representation, and authentic portrayal in media content.
Black respondents exhibit a heightened awareness of diverse creators and producers, actively seeking television content where they see themselves represented.
The LGBTQ+ community expresses a deep-seated sense of underrepresentation and the need for more authentic narratives in media.
Asian audiences are eager to move beyond secondary roles in entertainment content and advocate for realistic and inclusive portrayals.
Black and LGBTQ+ audiences exhibit increased loyalty to media brands that respect their representation, sourcing content from creators who mirror their experiences and featuring talent that reflects their identity.
Impacts of mobile and social media usage
Generational nuances are exposed regarding the impact of mobile and social media usage on mental health. Gen Z and Gen Y are more attuned to the adverse effects of excessive social media and mobile use, particularly on self-esteem and anxiety. LGBTQ+ individuals, irrespective of their generation, also express heightened concerns over the negative implications of their digital engagements.
Willingness to pay for content
Diverse audiences exhibit varying tendencies toward paying for digital content. Gen Z and Gen Y are notably more willing to invest in digital content than Gen X, hinting at the shifting media consumption paradigms. Black and Latino cohorts emerge as more willing spenders on digital content than other REI groups.
Unlocking media benefits
The study reveals the appeal of on-demand access to content remains a consistent top benefit, across generational and Racial, Ethnic, and Identity (REI) cohorts.
The desire to watch what one wants when one wants is the foremost advantage of subscribing to video content.
Anywhere access emerges as the predominant advantage of subscribing to audio content.
Digital print media garners favor for its capacity to offer knowledge acquisition, personalized curation, consistent content updates, and unwavering quality.
DCN’s Digital Media Audience DiversityStudy uncovers a spectrum of insights into the dynamics of digital media engagement. Understanding the subtleties within these findings across generation and Racial, Ethnic, and Identity (REI) cohorts is pivotal for content companies to engage with specific audiences effectively. Beyond profits, this engagement nurtures creativity, fosters inclusivity, and aligns media companies with the evolving ethos of a diverse and dynamic media future.
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A data gap is growing in digital advertising as regulators become stricter, users choose cookie-blocked browsers, and Chrome slowly kills the third-party cookie. It has caused addressability in the open web to tank to 30%. However, publishers are in a powerful position to fill the data gap and already have a sustainable solution using their first-party data in direct deals. This means that publishers can create powerful and differentiated endemic and non-endemic, interest-based audiences for advertisers to reach 100% of users without compromising privacy.
As part of DCN’s Hot Topic series, Joe Root, CEO and Co-founder at Permutive, sat down with David Minkin, SVP of Digital Operations and Client Success at Dow Jones, to talk about how the publisher’s first-party data strategy has evolved, and where they are seeing revenue growth. Dow Jones is a division of News Corp and is home to leading publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, MarketWatch, Mansion Global, Financial News and Private Equity News.
Here are some of the highlights from that conversation.
Open marketplace decline
Publishers have seen open marketplace revenue decrease by 25% year-on-year in Q4, which makes it hard for publishers to forecast. Based upon his experience, Minkin puts this down to several factors. These include the death of the third-party cookie, the walls of the walled gardens getting higher, and traffic disruption from Google sending less traffic to sites, and Facebook sending less traffic to news publishers. “All of that puts downward pressure on the open marketplace, and its ability to maintain CPMs where they’ve been historically, and that loss of traffic is resulting in a loss of open marketplace revenue for many publishers,” he said.
Most of Dow Jones’s digital advertising revenue comes from direct-sold, where they see “a strong interest and continued interest” as buyers leverage their first-party data. The direct deals they see include audience-guaranteed transactions, so a programmatic guaranteed (PG) deal with an audience layered on, and PMPs with audiences with that first-party data available.
“I welcome that trend to continue,” said Minkin. “The yields are better in terms of those eCPMs we’re getting out of all those flavours of [direct] transaction. Also, I think there’s a lot in the open marketplace regarding ad quality issues. I’d rather know who is advertising with us and who is on our site. So as we move more to a world of direct PG and private marketplace (PMP), that certainly helps give me that sort of visibility I want.”
Publishers may favour certain types of direct-sold deals over others, for example, a PG deal over a PMP because of the guaranteed spend over a period of time. Dow Jones has seen “substantial growth” in PG, where the yield is substantially higher than what the publisher gets from the open.
Starting with the data
Across Permutive publishers, in Q4 2022, audience-driven direct-sold was up 37% year-on-year and in Q2 2023, this increased to 62%. As publishers start to see the benefits of the shifting tides to direct-sold, they recognise it starts with building a strong first-party data strategy. This includes exploring how you go to market and getting the RFPs required around the audience.
From Dow Jones’s perspective, their first-party data strategy has been a “seismic shift” that gained momentum when Google announced its third-party cookie deprecation a few years ago. Initially, it was about understanding what first-party data was available. What data needs to be available based on the demands from RFPs and what clients are requesting? And having the right technology in place, from building lookalikes to segmenting the data. “We’ve now gotten to the point where we’re virtually 100% only using first-party data,” Minkin said.
This focus on first-party data must also translate across the business, particularly to go-to-market teams. According to Minkin Dow Jones has “done a lot of education over the past few years” to bring their sales team up to speed and confident in talking about the publisher’s first-party strategy. “A lot of that success is really because of my team – who are building a lot of these products and actioning a lot of these segments – working very closely with our product strategy team to roll this out to the sales team,” he said. “It’s really been an evolution.”
When publishers build valuable first-party audiences, pricing strategies require some attention, especially around unique premium audiences. An example from Dow Jones is financial advisors, where the publisher is the best place to go to reach them at scale. “There are only about 300,000 or so financial advisors in the U.S. That audience is not commodified, and that commands a much higher CPM,” said Minkin.
Future-focus
When it comes to the future of their data strategy, Dow Jones plans to continue to build upon everything they’ve developed and implemented over the past few years. Minkin sees Dow Jones’s advertising product suite as truly mutlifacted and adaptable, where some solutions are high touch, and highly customized, while others are meant to be low touch and extremely scalable.
The aim is to automate as much of the low-touch solutions as possible, allowing their teams to focus on the premium, high-touch campaigns. This approach “ultimately is going to bring in the bigger dollar values and have more impact for our clients.” Minkin added. “We want those campaigns to be as successful as possible to get more of those renewals.”
The fourth quarter is often a time when ad dollars are flowing, allowing publishers to maximize gains and push toward annual goals. But this year, we’ve found that many industry issues are putting pressure on publishers to do much more than wait for the Q4 revenue to roll in. Through helping our clients finish the year strong, we’ve learned that this is becoming a time of year to learn from the past, optimize the present and position yourself for the future.
This trend is reminiscent of certain literary figure from a holiday classic: A Christmas Carol. There we followed the life and learnings of Ebenezer Scrooge, who vowed to live a better life by keeping the past, present, and future on his mind. Here’s how publishers can learn from that timeless tale to make their fourth quarter a fruitful one.
Past: Learn how to inform packaging and pricing
For Scrooge, one of the hardest parts of being confronted with his past was accepting that nothing could be done about what’s already been. Luckily, historical performance can help publishers use their past to learn how to unlock the true value of their business. And with a whole calendar year of new data to reflect on, this is an ideal time to take a look at how your ad performance has measured up.
With this knowledge, you can price and package your inventory to raise its appeal to your buyers. Use it to make demand-based decisions that highlight your top performers and drive increases to your bottom line. Conversely, your data can help you spot any mistakes you might have made or opportunities you might have missed. It might be too late to make a mark this year, but these insights can be a boon for you if you’re able to learn from them and adjust accordingly.
Present: Grow partnerships based on buyer trends
Old Ebenezer found joy in celebrating the present. Likewise, publishers have plenty of reasons to relish the here and now. Historically speaking, the end of the year has brought strong earning potential to digital publishers. In fact, except for 2020, global digital ad spend has increased YoY since 2010, and a sizable part of that growth has been realized in Q4.
With several countries entering their holiday months, and a corresponding rise in internet traffic worldwide, advertisers are eager to connect with publisher audiences as often and as effectively as they can. This boost in demand can provide a temporary but impactful lift to CPMs and yield.
Take advantage of the rise in demand by building long-term partnerships with advertisers that are eager to reach your audiences this time of year. Deliver efficiently on campaign goals and offer transparent insights that strengthen your relationship and keep your buyers in the loop. Your ability to establish yourself as a reliable partner now could pay dividends later with repeat business.
Future: Simplify operations and become more efficient
The most frightening of Scrooge’s revelations came from his visions of the future. If he didn’t change his ways, then trouble was sure to follow. That’s a sentiment to which many publishers can relate. This year, several large-scale publishers saw a YoY decrease in revenue in Q1. At the start of each year, publishers often feel the pinch as the industry tightens its belt and recovers from a quarter of higher-than-usual spending.
Though the present might seem rosy, the future is murky. That’s why this quarter is becoming a time for publishers to identify and avoid any year-over-year issues. We’re seeing many of our clients looking to optimize their tech stack and make their operations more holistic. Improvements like these will reduce waste and boost efficiency well into the uncertain future.
By keeping the past, present and future in mind as the fourth quarter unfolds, you’ll find it much easier to reap the rewards of the year ahead. More importantly, you’ll enter 2024 ready for any circumstances that might be thrown at you.
Today marks the six month milestone of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gerskovich’s wrongful detention by the Russian government. For Evan, this means 184 days without his freedom, without seeing his friends and family, without the ability to do any of the things you or I take for granted as we go through our day.
This difficult milestone also marks six months of a brazen assault on press freedom. The fact is that Evan is innocent of the accusation levied against him. He was simply doing his job as a journalist, reporting for The Wall Street Journal, an organization that I have been proud to have been associated with for over 20 years.
The Journal has been the byword for responsible and accurate reporting since its founding in 1889. Its very existence as an ongoing concern is predicated on its reputation as an unbiased and accurate reflection of the world it lives in. The quality and care of Evan’s reporting (which we encourage you to read here) speaks for itself.
It’s not difficult to imagine a world in which journalists cannot freely exercise their trade. Tyrants and bullies would win. Worse still, we would live in a world in which we are ill-informed at best and deliberately mis-informed at worst.
DCN members compete vigorously with each other to ensure they are bringing the most exciting scoops, the most entertaining content, the most relevant news to our audiences. But, as a group, we always coalesce on the safety and security of our reporters, who are often in the field in dangerous situations.
Dow Jones, The Wall Street Journal and Evan’s family are all grateful for the support DCN members have shown to date. Evan’s case must remain front and center as much as possible. Every day that goes by brings the normalization of this atrocious detention that much closer. We cannot let this happen to either the free press or to Evan.
Wearing the “Free Evan” button in public sparks conversations. Using the #IStandWithEvan hashtag on your social media posts keeps Evan’s cause top of mind. Reading and sharing Evan’s articles (which we’ve made free to the world) reminds all of us what a remarkable journalist is sitting in a Russian jail cell, fearlessly representing our collective mission around the world.
You can read more about Evan and the latest on his case here. Please help us keep Evan’s message front and center and join us in demanding Evan’s immediate and safe release.
It’s hard to believe, but ChatGPT was only released to the public late last year (November 2022), sparking an AI arms race and spurring adoption across a range of sectors, including the media.
So, how can media leaders best harness these developments? What are the steps they need to have in place to make the most of these advances? Here are seven things you need to consider:
1. Don’t just jump on the bandwagon
The media has long been guilty of shiny object syndrome, chasing after the next big thing in the hope that it will help solve multiple short-term and long-term structural issues. All of the noise that’s being made about AI can make media leaders fear that they are behind the curve. From the publishers I have spoken to recently, the FOMO (fear of missing out) is very real.
Yet at the same time, there’s a wariness too. After all, the media landscape is littered with many other developments (the Metaverse, VR/AR, pivot to video, blockchain et al) that have been simultaneously held up as saviors and disrupters.
Will AI be any different? I think it will be, not least because elements of this technology have already been deployed at many media businesses for a while. Developments in Generative AI are the next stage in this evolution, rather than a wholesale revolution.
2. Take time to determine the best approach
Findings from a new global survey published by LSE seem to reinforce this. They found that although 80% of respondents expect an increase in the use of AI in their newsrooms, four in ten companies have not greatly changed their approach to AI since 2019, the date of LSE’s last report.
Adoption of new tools at this time may therefore be lower than you think. Perhaps that may give you the confidence to take a beat. Rather than jumping on the bandwagon too quickly, take the time to determine what you want AI to help you achieve.
This approach can help to lay the foundations for long-term success. Strategies should start with the end in mind. Set goals and ascertain how you’ll know when they have been achieved.
3. Set up a taskforce to understand what success looks like
To help them determine their own approaches to the latest wave of AI innovation, companies like TMB (Trusted Media Brands) and others have set up internal task forces to understand the risks, as well as the benefits that AI may unlock.
In doing this, media businesses can learn from the mistakes of those who’ve arguably rushed into this technology too quickly. CNET, Gannett and MSN are just some of those who have recently had embarrassing public experiences as a result of publishing (unchecked) AI-written content.
4. Bring the whole company with you
Given the breadth of activities that can be impacted by AI, these internal bodies need to be diverse and include people from across the business. This matters because media firms should see AI as more than just a cost-saver.
Harnessed correctly, it may help to create fresh revenue streams and to reach new audiences. To realize this value, publishers need to cultivate company-wide expertise and carefully assess where AI can drive efficiencies, enhance existing offerings, or enable entirely new products and services.
Tools like Newsroom AI and Jasper can help to increase the volume, speed and breadth of content being offered, while AI-produced newsletters like ARLnow and news apps like Artifact demonstrate how AI can deliver content in fresh ways. Developing internal training programs and encouraging take-up of industry wide opportunities to gain more knowledge about how AI works and its possibilities will help with buy-in and culture change.
As Louise Story, a former executive at The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal recently put it, “AI will reshape the media landscape, and the organizations that use it creatively will thrive.”
5. Have clear guidelines for AI usage
Alongside having a clear strategic approach, and a robust understanding of how to measure success, how these efforts are implemented also matters.
One way to help offset this concern is to upskill your staff and ensure that representatives from across the company are involved in setting your AI strategy. A further practical step involves creating a clear set of guidelines about how AI will be used in your company. And, indeed, what it will not be used for.
There are also opportunities to engage your audience in this process too. Ask them for input on your guidelines, as well as being clear (e.g., through effective labeling) about when AI has, or has not, been used. This matters at a time when trust in the media remains near record lows. AI missteps only risk exacerbating some of these trust issues, emphasizing why elements of this technology need to be used with an element of caution.
6. Understand how to protect your IP
Together with labor concerns, another major issue that publishers and content creators are contending with relates to copyright and IP. It is important to understand how you can avoid your content being cannibalized – and in some cases anonymized – by Generative AI.
Although tools like the chat/converse function in Google Search and Microsoft’s Bing provide links to sources, ChatGPT does not. That’s a major source of concern for media companies who risk being deprived of clickthrough traffic and attribution.
As Olivia Moore at the venture capital firm AZ16 has pointed out, ChatGPT is by far the most widely used of these tools. Its monthly web and app traffic is around the same size as that of platforms like Reddit, LinkedIn, and Twitch.
This summer, the Associated Press agreed to license its content to OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, making it the first publisher to do so. Not every company can replicate this. How many outlets have the reach, brand and depth of content that AP has? Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see if other major publishers – as well as consortia of other companies – follow suit.
The media industry has learned from past experience that relying too heavily on tech companies can undermine their long-term sustainability. Short-term financial grants and shifting algorithmic priorities may provide temporary relief but fail to address deeper impacts on creative business models.
Creating quality content comes at a cost. Having seen revenues eroded and journalism undercut previously, publishers are rightfully wary about how this will pan out. So, it will be critical to weigh any payment schemes and financial relationships against the larger industry-wide impact these tools will have on content creators.
Addressing this issue is not easy, given how nascent this AI technology is and how quickly it is developing. However, the potential risk to publishers is understandably focusing a lot of minds on identifying and implementing solutions. For now, as this issue plays out, it’s one that needs to be firmly on your radar.
Moving Forward: diversification and compensation
The rapid evolution of AI presents a heady mixture of both promise and peril. The companies that are most likely to flourish will have to balance the opportunities that AI offers while avoiding its pitfalls and threats.
That’s not going to be easy. However, the relationship between AI developers and content creators will remain a deeply symbiotic one.
“Media companies have an opportunity to become a major player in the space,” arguesFrancesco Marconi, the author of Newsmakers: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Journalism. “They possess some of the most valuable assets for AI development: text data for training models and ethical principles for creating reliable and trustworthy systems,” he adds.
Given this, arguably it’s all the more important that the media industry is rewarded for this value. “We should argue vociferously for compensation,” News Corporation’s chief executive Robert Thomson says.
At the same time, media companies also need to be cognizant of the fact that AI-driven changes in areas such as search and SEO, as well as consumer behaviors, are likely to impact traffic and digital ad revenues. This is akin to “dropping a nuclear bomb on an online publishing industry that’s already struggling to survive,” contends the technology reporter Matt Novak.
With regulation unlikely to come any time soon, arguably it will be up to publishers, perhaps working together collectively, to navigate the best solutions to this thorny financial issue. That may include collective bargaining and licensing agreements with AI companies using their materials, as well as creative partnerships like the new AI image generator recently announced by Getty Images and Nvidia.
In the meantime, it will be more important than ever for media companies to diversify their revenues, as well as step up their efforts to rethink their business models, operations, and products to ensure that they are fit for the age of AI.
Professor Charlie Beckett argues that fundamental to this will be content that stands out from the crowd. “In a world of AI-driven journalism, your human-driven journalism will be the standout,” he told us recently. Differentiation will be key, concurs the former BBC and Yahoo! executive David Caswell. Meanwhile, as Juan Señor, President of Innovation Media Consultingrecently reminded us, “we cannot rely on someone else’s platform to build our business.”
This means that publishers will need to focus on originality, value, in-house knowledge and skills, as well as the ability to bring their organization – and audience – along with them.
These are major challenges, and we need to acknowledge that AI offers both challenges and opportunities to media companies. Steering through this uncertain period will require making smart strategic decisions and keeping abreast of a rapidly changing landscape. The AI-driven future is hard to predict and navigating this transformation will require both vision and vigilance. But one thing is certain. It’s going to be a bumpy, creative and fascinating journey.
“He is a man, he has his back towards me and is not listening to me.” Those are the words one woman used to describe the regular FT reader as part of a 2015 focus group. Back then, the Global Media Monitoring Research Project showed women only appear in 29% of media coverage leaving women feeling that most content speaks to and is consumed by men.
The quote from the FT focus group was so powerful that eight years on it still propels many initiatives across departments to reach and engage a more diverse audience. From establishing an Audience Diversity team to running more inclusive marketing campaigns, FT has been working hard to resonate with the increasingly growing number of women in leadership positions across finance, business, politics and many other industries. Along the way, we’ve learned a great deal.
During the DCN Subscription Innovation Day held last week in New York, Daisy Donald, a principal consultant at FT’s media consultancy arm, FT Strategies, talked about some of the findings from these efforts and we share some of those here.
But we also decided to go beyond suggestions and guidelines at FT Strategies and developed a tool called FT Diversify that can help any media organization in its efforts to diversify its reporting, sourcing, and its audience. FT Diversify is a machine learning tool incorporated into the regular editorial workflow that counts gender imbalances in content and gives actionable recommendations for making the journalism more representative. And the implementation of this tool has also taught us lessons worth sharing.
Why is being representative so important for audience diversity?
Unfortunately, not a lot has changed in making media coverage more equal since 2015. Current numbers from the Gender Equality Tracker show that men represent over two-thirds of all names and pronouns in U.S. media.
Luba Kassova and Richard Addy’s research suggests that the lack of representation also translates into a news gender consumption gap: 60.1% of visits to the top 48 news websites were made by men. That marks a missed opportunity – not only in being socially equitable but also commercially prudent. News outlets are missing out on lots of visitors and subscribers that come from underrepresented segments. And this goes beyond gender into race, socioeconomic background, age, and more.
What can we do to analyze & increase representation?
During the session at DCN’s members-only event, FT Strategies’ Donald shared a few tips to address this: “the crux of it is a deep understanding of what segments of underrepresented audiences want, rallying behind that as an organization and having the motivation and diverse talent to translate that knowledge into journalism, products and experiences that these people are looking for.”
The way to achieve that is through feedback mechanisms that open up conversations with your readers. For example, ask yourselves: Can we create a survey on the home page? Can we bring them into the newsroom for a visit? Can our reporters talk to women readers to hear what pieces they really enjoyed? Can we do more to encourage women to participate in wider discussions such as in the comment sections?
It goes without saying that simply collecting that information isn’t going to change much. With our ‘Diversify’ product, we connect data on reporting with consumption data to produce a dashboard with statistics as well as actionable recommendations and next steps generated by its algorithms.
Would knowing what pieces resonate well with women and publishing more of those increase their engagement with your journalism and brand? Would having more women be featured as authors, sources and in images lead to an increase in women readers? From our experience at the FT and working with other publishers we believe the answer is a resounding yes.
We have also found that it is important to think beyond just the topics that women are viewing in order to avoid stereotyping. It’s more impactful to supplement that with information on what platforms and channels and in what formats women consume these articles. Writers and editors must also always be sure to consider the why.
During our collaboration with a Finnish publisher we created a dashboard that showed similar information to the FT Diversify tool: number of women in photos, bylines and quotes and viewership and time on page per topic, platform and format. We found out that there is a shortage of women writers in certain verticals and that women readers were viewing a lot more content on climate change than men. Our feedback mechanisms revealed that women were often short on time, juggling a few activities at once, and preferred a more informal, relaxed tone of reporting.
In order to solve those “problems” we experimented with a newsletter on climate change written by a group of women journalists on rotation, sharing their favorite climate stories from the week in a concise and informal way. The result was 6% more women subscribers to that newsletter compared to others in the short space of two weeks.
This shows that giving instant access to feedback and easy-to-digest data to journalists can be really powerful. It may not completely transform commissioning decisions or how reporting is done. However, it does nudge content creators to think more inclusively and focus on different formats, topics, and conversations. We have seen firsthand how this leads to better engagement and increases the impact of their journalism.
About the author
Rumyana is a manager at FT Strategies, and has worked with large media & publishing companies across Europe. She designed the Google News Initiative Audience diversity programme, and also has experience in content strategy, newsroom evolution and engagement tactics. She was recently part of the Financial Times’ Audience Engagement team supporting their audience diversity ambition to increase the amount of engaged women subscribers.
In the evolving advertising landscape, the shift from traditional linear television to digital platforms offers new ways for marketers to reach their audiences. However, while advertisers have new tools and techniques to target audiences, viewers are confronted with ads that disrupt their viewing experience, feel irrelevant, or annoy them. And new research uses neuroscience to demonstrate how context and tone affect advertising’s impact in CTV environments.
Integral Ad Science (IAS) and Neuro-Insight’s new study, The Mind on the Stream, explores how advertisers can enhance the relevance of their CTV ads through tone and context. The research shows an increase of 14% in brand impact when the ads match the tone of the content viewed on CTV. Ads that match the context of the content experience show a significant boost in brand impact, +39%. Moreover, ads that match tone and context result in a greater significant increase of 49% in brand impact.
Matching advertising with content’s tone and context
The study includes a cohort of 137 participants in a controlled environment simulating an ad-supported streaming experience. All participants watch the same program content. During this simulated streaming experience, participants see 20 ads from 20 known brands across various verticals, including food/beverage, telecommunications, entertainment, finance, and consumer packaged goods (CPG). The ads vary in terms of length and narrative style.
The research tests the ads in two ways: tone/context and frequency.
Group 1 participants undergo tone and context variations, where some ads match the show’s context, some match its tone, and some match both tone and context.
Tone matches when advertisers ensure that their ads align with the overall feeling or voice of the content they accompany. In this study, since the program content is humorous, the research examines the impact of running ads that are also humorous.
Context matches when there’s a thematic or tangible connections between an ad and the program content. For instance, if the show features basketball, a contextually matched ad would also incorporate basketball elements.
Group 2 participants encounter different ad frequencies, with some ads appearing once, twice, three times, or four times during the program.
The study includes several metrics to measure the impact between Group 1 and Group 2 exposures.
Detailed memory measures ad memorability and brand impact by analyzing how well viewers retain specific details from the ads.
Emotional intensity gauges the emotional impact of the ads on viewers, with high scores indicating a strong emotional connection.
Global memory assesses how well viewers remember the visual, audio, and thematic elements.
Engagement measures the personal relevance of ad content to viewers.
Approach/Withdraw identifies the “lean in” or “I want to learn more” response from viewers, indicating likeability and overall positivity or negativity towards the ads.
Ad frequency
Interestingly, viewers overall show lower interest in ads repeated multiple times on CTV. However, ads that align with the video content mitigate the negative impact of repetition and perform better among viewers despite increased frequency. While brand impact remains consistent through the third viewing of a CTV ad, the fourth viewing results in a significant decline of 26%. This emphasizes the importance of limiting ad frequency to three viewings to preserve viewer connection and comprehension.
Advertisers and streaming publishers can optimize their ad strategies and drive better results when matching ad tone and context with the content viewed on CTV. The study also underscores the critical role of ad frequency in viewer engagement. By embracing contextual targeting, marketers and publishers have an opportunity to shift ad budgets and deliver impactful results in the digital advertising landscape.
Thanks to AI technology, anyone can quickly create a website and populate it with content that looks legitimate enough to sell advertising. The proliferation of made-for-advertising (MFA) websites, or sites created solely for the purpose of selling ads without much consideration for content quality and user experience, show little sign of waning as long advertisers are willing to invest in them.
That investment is becoming more significant. A recent report by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) revealed that brands are diverting as much as 15% of their ad spend toward MFA sites. When money is spent on MFAs, publishers and advertisers lose. Not only do MFAs earn revenue that could be invested in premium media company, advertisers sacrifice campaign performance by serving ads to less engaged audiences alongside content that might risk their brand safety.
Some advertisers and ad tech companies are taking steps to identify and remove MFAs from their inclusion lists and platforms, but what can media companies do to differentiate themselves? It’s important to first understand the impact MFA sites have on the industry, why advertisers invest in these sites and how publishers can demonstrate why their “made-for-audiences” websites are a better bet for advertisers’ investments.
Low Quality Content: SinceMFA sites are built to maximize ad revenue, content quality often takes a backseat. Some MFA sites rely on AI tools to create articles that are not fact checked or verified such as fabricated news, clickbait articles, conspiracy theories with spammy links or other content that doesn’t align with advertisers’ brands or target audiences.
Poor User Experience: Since the goal of MFA sites is to generate as many ad impressions as possible, this often leads to websites riddled with redundant ad placements, false navigation buttons, pixel stuffing and ad stacking – all factors that lead to a poor user experience.
Paid Traffic Acquisition: MFA sites often rely on paid traffic and other incentivized methods engineered to attract as many visitors as possible rather than carefully cultivating engaged audiences through organic means.
MFAs vs. premium sites: what’s the difference?
While MFA sites’ cluttered, clickbait appearance are visible to the human eye, these sites can be challenging to identify in the programmatic ecosystem.
MFA websites look desirable to tech platforms and advertisers because they have low invalid traffic (IVT), high viewability and low CPMs. But a key difference between MFA and premium websites is their audiences.
While premium publishers’ audiences have a keen interest in their content, MFA sites often resort to techniques that favor quick clicks over lasting engagement. A human visitor might land on an MFA site after clicking on an enticing headline, but they often drop off the landing page after the first interaction.
The value of made-for-audiences websites
What can media companies do to stand apart from MFAs and demonstrate their commitment to cultivating valuable engaged audiences? Here are a few tips to help your made-for-audiences site get advertisers’ attention:
1. Prioritize User Experience: Elevate your website’s user experience by streamlining webpages, eliminating ad redundancy and decluttering ads. Prioritize your audience by striving for lower ad-to-content ratios, which enhances UX for subscribers and encourages return visits.
2. Deliver Genuine Value: Create content that engages visitors and keeps them coming back for more. Encourage advertisers to focus on meaningful KPIs such as cost per engagement and conversions, rather than superficial metrics like clicks and impressions.
3. Attract Quality Audiences: Focus on organic traffic acquisition strategies rather than paid or incentivized traffic. Not only can paid strategies make your site look like an MFA site, but these tactics can also invite bot traffic and fraudulent activities.
4. Participate in Industry Initiatives: There are several initiatives developed to help quality publishers stand apart from lesser quality sites for their commitment to quality and transparency. The Journalism Trust Initiative (JTI) highlights the good work publishers are doing by certifying them for their adherence to industry standards for ethics and content creation. Another program, Trust.txt, establishes connections between publishers and trusted industry associations so that advertisers and tech platforms can identify these quality publishers.
5. Engage in Audits:Digital website audits conducted by a trusted third party help demonstrate to advertisers and readers that your website is doing everything possible to consistently attract quality traffic, deliver ads accurately and efficiently and minimize fraudulent activity.
6. Follow Industry Standards and Best Practices: There are several programs developed to verify publishers’ implementation of industry standards and best practices for ad fraud, brand safety and privacy. The Alliance for Audited Media (AAM), IAB Tech Lab and Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) have programs to certify publishers for implementing industry standards into their business practices and ad delivery systems – steps MFA sites are unlikely to take.
By executing these strategies, media companies can stand apart from made-for-advertising websites and demonstrate the value of a new kind of MFA: “made-for-audiences,” which provides advertisers with engaged audiences eager to learn about products and services that align with their interests and lifestyles.
FKA Twigs joined by members of the Rambert Dance Company at Vogue World. Photo credit Marc Brenner/Vogue.
Condé Nast’s Global Digital Chief Business Officer Deborah Brett has a long history of leveraging the power of partnerships to drive consumer and advertiser growth and implement revenue-generating products. According to Brett, content drives consumer engagement and intent, which in turn delivers value for the reader and improves audience engagement.
“We’ve been doing this long before an advertorial or a branded content post or dark social ever existed,” she explained. “So, candidly, it’s been very easy for us to translate that legacy into all of the different emerging partnership platforms as they’ve presented themselves.”
A world of partnerships
Brett spent last week in London for Vogue World, which began last year as a live fashion show and street fair in New York but became an integral part of Fashion Week 2023. This is an emblematic partnership for the iconic Condé Nast fashion brand. And it’s something that Brett believes Condé Nast is uniquely positioned to do because of the caliber of its content, which drives audience engagement.
“We’re executing Vogue World out of London, which will of course live on our owned and operated platforms. We’ll also engage the broader consumer-base across all of the social platforms,” said Brett.
Celebrities, royals, opera singers, actors, supermodels, fashion designers descended on London’s Theatre Royal Drury Lane for Vogue World London, a theatrical West End production encompassing the best of British culture and fashion. British Vogue teamed up with Italian luxury fashion house Moncler to host a VIP Vogue World party on September 14th at private members club George in Mayfair, which was decked out with Blooming Haus florals.
The star-studded event celebrated iconic British creatives, culture and fashion from Shakespeare to Stormzy, with performances from opera, theater, and film, as well as classical and pop music. The guest list included royals, celebrities, designers and featured music, dance, and a runway extravaganza finale. But the event’s reach was far from limited to the A-listers in attendance.
“Wherever somebody happens to tune in, they’re going to be met with incredible content from Vogue World and the talent that engages in this event,” Brett explained. Audiences will also experience “all of the ways that our advertisers have integrated, activated on the ground–but more importantly–have activated within environments like TikTok, Instagram and X” (formerly known as Twitter).
The event is a calling card for how Condé Nast mirrors culture on the wide range of platforms where they reach consumers. It is also representative of how they bring advertisers along to the party.
The approach illustrates what Pam Drucker Mann, Condé Nast’s global chief revenue officer, says at NewFronts in May: The company isn’t a walled garden. They are creators who meet consumers where they are.
The platforms
Condé Nast operates in 32 markets, among them France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Latin America, the U.K. and U.S. This vast global network consists of about 80 different distribution platforms, including the usual social suspects (Twitter/X, Instagram, Facebook, SnapChat, TikTok, LinkedIn) and YouTube as well as WeChat and Viber internationally. The media company also has a strong presence on Connected TV (Sling, Amazon Fire and Tubi, Roku) and across audio platforms (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocketcast, Google Play).
And as Brett pointed out, “It’s not just the same content everywhere, but tailored content that is going to be native and relevant to what that consumer expects.”
Condé Nast’s biggest platform partner is YouTube, where the company boasts more than 65 million subscribers, a gain of 12% over the previous year.
Earlier this year, Condé Nast announced over 300 new YouTube pilots over 55 brand channels in 11 countries. This included the return of over 230 original series, including Wired’s Autocomplete Interview, Vogue’s Beauty Secrets, GQ’s 10 Essentials and Architectural Digest’s Open Door, which together drove over 700 million views in 2022, Mann told Adweek.
Condé Nast is also expanding its streaming partners to include Sling, Amazon Fire and Tubi. They’ve also got a brand channel for Architectural Digest on Roku, which features the Open Door and Unique Spaces series. These focus on celebrities’ private homes and the world’s most beautiful and architecturally unique homes, respectively.
Condé Nast was also one of TikTok’s initial Pulse Premiere partners – a platform Brett said their audience demands they be part of. She describes TikTok as a platform that is turnkey, low-lift and scalable.
Finding the right partners
Evaluating the perfect partnership involves a lot of considerations including brand image, customer benefits, fit, and value to bottom line.
“For us, performance drives premiumness and premiumness drives performance. It’s a two-way street,” said Brett. “And what Condé Nast does uniquely is maintain a really strict code of elevated consumer engagement and elevated content creation.”
The media company does this by staying brand-consistent. They are driven by journalistic integrity. If they’re not authentic to the voice of that specific brand, the partnership doesn’t work. “If we miss on that authenticity, on the expectation of what Vogue would be or what the New Yorker would be or what Bon Appetit would be on one of these platforms, we’ll get called out.”
Tracking conversion
Given the incredibly diverse platforms Condé Nast brands are on, as well as the global audience, evaluating ROI is a complex undertaking. However, Brett said that one of the most rewarding parts of her job is seeing how these efforts translate into conversions in trackable ways.
“When we work with Meta, for example, when we use their platform, with our intent-driving content, we’re able to track attributable conversion: literal click to purchase, click to buy.”
Condé Nast focuses on intent-driving metrics, like how likely people are to perform a certain action, for example, buying a product or attending an event.
“For so long it felt like we knew we were driving these choices, but we would never have been able to bridge the gap with the click attribution of them actually happening.” Brett said that “the partnerships that we’ve built and the way that we’ve evolved, the way we work with all these different platforms and measurement tools have really proven back to us how direct that connection actually is. And we can see the dollars transact against our recommendations. I think that’s perhaps been–not the most surprising–but certainly the most satisfying.”
Brett said that witnessing the direct connection between the two has been a remarkable evolution of how platforms and capabilities are coming together to close the loop for the advertiser. Through metrics, they can see how it all intersects. For example, they can see how high value integrations convert to high value intents, and keep the funnel full while converting at the bottom of it.
“I think we like to say that content is really the best advertising, and to know that the content that we create for advertisers is driving every different stage of the consumer journey and that we can prove it for them in simple and repeatable ways. It’s just been such an exciting era for us as Condé Nast,” she said.
Premium connects the dots
In the last five years or so, Brett said they’ve been able to move from more siloed strategies to connecting all of the dots.
“I certainly think that the more recent shifts in cookie attribution and all the rest of these things has helped to open everybody to the power of premium content to drive performance and really figuring out how to connect those dots more purposefully.”
For a long time, the digital media industry relied on third-party cookie-based verification to assess and validate the performance and delivery of digital advertising campaigns. Cookies had broad-scale adoption, but that all changed when Google announced it would phase out third-party cookies on Chrome.
“Now without that crutch, we’re really leaning back into what is true, what is fundamental, what speaks to the consumer, and how we come together to capitalize on that, but also to measure that in really meaningful ways.”
Digital media companies are now focusing on privacy, transparency and user consent as they consider alternative strategies for measurement. First-party data is more reliable and privacy-compliant and boosts engagement through personalization, content creation and recommendations and targeted advertising.
“I think everything that we do is calibrated around meaningful engagement for the consumer,” said Brett. “So every single campaign we’ve ever run and every single choice that we’re making would ladder into that ultimate goal. If it’s not delivering value for our audience, it’s not a place where we belong.”
The digital media landscape is experiencing a seismic shift, marked by a constant flux of information and the increasing demands of a data-driven market. Meanwhile, publishing executives are faced with an impossible dilemma: while industry-wide layoffs erode valuable human resources, data engineering teams are grappling with the Herculean task of managing an exponentially increasing deluge of data with fewer resources and more time pressure. In the face of an industry wide decline in traffic, the stakes are higher than ever. How can we solve the conundrum of having unprecedented access to an [expensive] overabundance of data, but a shortage of effective ways to harness and monetize it?
In an era where data complexity meets resource constraints, the most savvy media leaders are winning the market. What’s their secret? Recognizing this age-old dilemma as a golden opportunity to outpace their competition with two game-changing HR strategies: automation and outsourcing. Automation frees your team from mundane tasks and expedites the assessment of analytics that drive market leadership. Outsourcing offers agile scalability while ensuring data quality, allowing you to focus on revenue-generating KPIs. These aren’t quick fix band-aid solutions; they’re transformative levers for operational excellence and market differentiation.
By leveraging these strategies, you can evolve from being data-swamped to becoming an insights-driven powerhouse, turning challenges into scalable opportunities for growth. Don’t just survive the digital deluge—navigate it to seize a competitive edge. Your career and your organization depend on it.
The data dilemma: too much and not enough
Data, once a scarce resource, is now an overwhelming flood. The digital footprints left by users on web pages, social media platforms, and e-commerce sites create a plethora of opportunities for insights and business decisions. But the richness of this data is a double-edged sword. It can impede more than it enables if not managed effectively.
Consider this: The task of measuring CPH performance or compiling sitewide inventory forecasts can tie up operational teams for days. By the time these forecasts are complete, the insights are already on their way to becoming outdated. In an industry where real-time decision-making is critical, this lag is untenable.
Making data work for you: the automation advantage
Automation is not a new concept, but its application in solving the data logjam is revolutionary. One industry leader, a global news publisher, found a compelling use case in reducing the time spent on CPH reporting. With a well-configured, automated DataOps platform, the time required for these reports shrunk from up to 4 hours to as little as 20 minutes.
But this isn’t just about speed; it’s about transformation. An 80% reduction in manual reporting time enabled a threefold increase in the frequency of reporting and a fivefold increase in the granularity of the data. With automation taking over routine data compilation and analysis, time and focus can shift to higher-value aspects like interpreting data in the market context or innovating on revenue generation methods.
Scaling with complexity: the outsourcing solution
Automation is just one part of the solution. As organizations expand, either organically or through acquisitions, their data infrastructure often struggles to keep pace. One digital media titan chose to tackle this challenge through outsourcing. By opting for a “buy vs build” scenario, they saved six months of development and data preparation while achieving several key milestones:
Process optimization: Using a single source of truth for revenue reporting across 40 brands, 20 partners, and over 200 data streams, the internal Revenue Analytics team was able to focus on generating insights and strategic decision-making.
Reliability and governance: Continual monitoring of data quality with standard alerts for anomalies, outages, or inadvertent data corruption mitigates the risk of data corruption and/or human error.
Scalability: Even after a 200% data volume increase due to an acquisition, the outsourcing solution scaled effortlessly, with no loss of speed or data quality.
Strategic reallocation: human resources in the age of automation and outsourcing
Perhaps the most significant impact of automation and outsourcing is on human resources. Employees who were tied up with menial tasks can now contribute in more strategic, higher-impact roles. This reallocation is not just an operational shift but a strategic one, enabling teams to transition from data janitors to data strategists and scientists.
Key takeaways and next steps
As we move toward an increasingly data-driven digital future, it’s vital for both companies and employees to adapt and evolve. For organizations willing to adopt automation and leverage outsourcing, a few steps can guide the transition:
Assess core needs: Conduct an internal audit to identify processes that can benefit from automation or outsourcing.
Run pilot tests: Before full implementation, pilot programs can help evaluate the effectiveness of these solutions.
Choose the right partners: When outsourcing, vet third-party vendors rigorously to ensure they align with your operational needs and data security requirements.
Develop a reallocation plan: Strategically redeploy human resources in areas that will benefit from human intelligence and creativity.
Monitor and adjust: An ongoing assessment mechanism should be in place to measure performance improvements, data accuracy, and overall ROI from these strategies.
Automation and outsourcing are not just tools for operational efficiency, they’re strategic assets. Through their thoughtful deployment, publishers can transform existing challenges into opportunities for innovation and long-term growth. In an age where data is plentiful but time and talent are scarce, leveraging these strategies offers a way to survive and thrive.
/ An inside look at the business of digital content
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