Episode 124
Can ads support news?
This episode from Cannes of The Rebooting Show, presented by Outbrain, features David Kostman (CEO of Outbrain), Kate Scott-Dawkins (Global President for Business Intelligence at GroupM), and Johanna Mayer-Jones (chief advertising officer of the Washington Post). They discuss the ad market's growth contrasted with the decline in ad revenue for news publishers. Emphasizing the value of trusted journalism, they explore the importance of advanced audience targeting and AI in creating brand-safe environments. The conversation highlights the need for new strategies and better communication to showcase the value of news audiences to advertisers.
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Transcript
This episode of The Rebooting Show is presented by Outbrain.
Brian:Outbrain is a technology platform that drives business results by engaging people across the open internet.
Brian:The company predicts moments of engagement to drive measurable outcomes for advertisers and publishers using AI and machine learning across more than 8, 000 online properties globally.
Brian:As the advertising landscape contends with signal loss, traffic declines, and the emergence of closed loop attribution, Outbrain's offerings are particularly relevant.
Brian:In the shifting environment, Outbrain provides advertisers with necessary tools to navigate these changes.
Brian:The platform's technology facilitates advanced filtering and audience targeting, which are crucial for showcasing the value of news audiences to advertisers.
Brian:These capabilities allow for the crafting of resilient and effective ad strategies that resonate with audiences, despite evolving ad spending trends.
Brian:Outbrain's role in this transformative period is to ensure that its partners Can leverage these trends to their advantage, maintaining a connection between advertisers and the engaged audiences they seek.
Brian:Thank you to Outbrain for your support.
Brian:This is a Riviera edition of The Rebooting Show.
Brian:It's my favorite tradition.
Brian:This is probably the 15th or 17th time I've been to Cannes.
Brian:I meant to try to count them up.
Brian:I went to Japan one year instead of going to Cannes.
Brian:That was my favorite Cannes.
Brian:I can remember the first time I came here when I was a reporter at Adweek.
Brian:I mean, it was surreal for me at the time to think that I'd never ever go to the south of France.
Brian:And here I've been many times.
Brian:That first year I made the biggest of all canned mistakes by staying out far too late at the gutter bar.
Brian:But you know, I, I still got to the awards press conferences where a reporter would inevitably ask the jury to comment on the first bronze lions for Kazakhstan.
Brian:Thankfully, I've retired from both the awards press conferences and.
Brian:The gutter bar.
Brian:the following is a conversation I had at the GroupM rooftop earlier today with David Kosman, the CEO of Outbrain, Kate Scott Dawkins, the global president for business intelligence at GroupM, and Joanna Mayer Jones, the CRO of the Washington Post.
Brian:all week, I'm going to view CAN through the lens of whether this barometer of the ad industry, You know, what it says about the direction publishers need to go with their ad businesses.
Brian:And in this conversation, we focus on the ad challenges of the news business in particular.
Brian:and the numbers paint, but to me is like just realistically a pretty bleak picture.
Brian:because the ad problems that are happening right now at publishers are against the backdrop of a very buoyant and resilient ad market.
Brian:Kate recently published GroupM's mid year ad spending update that revised up.
Brian:Their ad spending forecasts and globally, the ad market is on pace to expand nearly 8%.
Brian:I mean, that is fast growth in the US.
Brian:It's 5.
Brian:8%.
Brian:and that growth isn't really going to publishers for the most part, but it's going to and stop me.
Brian:If you've heard this before tech platforms.
Brian:But also now to streaming services and increasingly a growing number of retail media networks.
Brian:I know in Cannes, it is crawling with people from your favorite grocery store chains who are now in the ad business.
Brian:And it honestly leads me to question the role that advertising should play, in news business models.
Brian:you know, the shining example of success remains the New York Times and the New York Times ad business is shrinking.
Brian:So what does that mean for publishers when the news publishers, when they think about how to build these sustainable and resilient businesses?
Brian:I appreciate you listening.
Brian:If you are in Cannes, I hope to see you at some point along the cross set.
Brian:Now on a conversation.
Brian:Rebooting Show.
Brian:This is a live edition from Kan.
Brian:thank you to Group M for hosting us here in this, lovely studio.
Brian:we're going to talk about a very important issue today, which is, Future of the news business when it comes to advertising.
Brian:and to do so, I want to introduce our panelists.
Brian:first, David Kosman, the CEO of Outbreak.
Brian:Thank you.
Brian:Hey, Brian.
Brian:Thanks for having me.
Brian:Kate Scott Dawkins.
Brian:Kate is the Global President of Business Intelligence at Group M.
Brian:Just came out with a big ad spending report.
Brian:A lot of good stuff in there.
Brian:We talked about this earlier.
Brian:I want to get into it because there was less good stuff when it comes to publishers.
Brian:I hate to say that.
Brian:and, Joanna Merritt Jones, Chief Advertising Officer at the Washington Post, which is not in the news at all.
Brian:These days.
Brian:and so, we're going to talk about why this is that, Ads and news increasingly just don't seem to mix really well, and it's really important that that problem gets solved.
Brian:so Kate, I want to start with you because, of your report, because this is, this is the data side and it's good to have a grounding in, in data.
Brian:when I got the report, I was saying, wow, this is great.
Brian:This is great for 4Can.
Brian:The ad business is growing like 7.
Brian:8%.
Brian:You revised it up globally.
Brian:U.
Brian:S.
Kate:5.
Brian:8%.
Brian:5.
Brian:8%.
Brian:This is, this is all good news.
Brian:A lot of up and to the right.
Brian:In there.
Brian:Out of home is up quite a bit.
Brian:obviously, CTV streaming is up quite a bit.
Brian:Retail media, massive.
Brian:and then I went down like quite a bit.
Brian:and
Joanna:it got
Brian:to, well, it's sunny outside, but not in here.
Brian:So, but then I got to like the publishing and it was newspapers and magazines and digital.
Brian:It says, what, what, what did you see there?
Kate:It is a little bit of a different story with, print and we've seen, you know, there very much the graph goes down and to the right as you progress in time.
Kate:And it's because a lot of the, features, things like classifieds, that were a, a mainstay of the news, are, are now more and more handled by digital platforms, which we measure, you know, some of those, Carvan or something separately within the digital piece of it, right?
Kate:So those types of places have moved into the digital atmosphere.
Kate:and so it's, you know, globally flat ish or just behind inflation, into this year and next year.
Kate:And so, there are holdouts, uh, Germany and, Northern Europe actually, where you have Finland strong, paper pulp exports.
Kate:Yes, they love, they love a newspaper.
Brian:They do.
Brian:I wish everyone was like the Swedes.
Brian:They'll just subscribe to anything, like, any sort of like report about like subscriptions, the Swedes, the Danes, they're just like.
Brian:They just take out new subscriptions and then go to their country homes and, and make coffee.
Brian:Is
Joanna:that what they're doing?
Joanna:I do, I think we can just finish there.
Joanna:So take out subscriptions, go to your country homes.
Brian:but it is, it's a challenged environment.
Brian:I think is, I think you, you say in the report.
Brian:and I wonder what, what Joanna, I mean, you, you see it every day.
Brian:there's a lot of blame to be put on keyword block list, but obviously there's a lot of distribution challenges right now in news.
Brian:I mean, at the end of the day you need attention in order to monetize that attention through advertising.
Brian:And if the way attention is being measured via visits to a webpage are going down, then your advertising is going to be challenged.
Brian:How do you diagnose what is going on right now in the ad market when it comes to news publishers, specifically?
Joanna:Yeah, I mean, I think it's important to start with the fact that news is, is not a monolith, right?
Joanna:The, the, the news category encompasses lots of different verticals and areas of coverage.
Joanna:Everything from sports to games, to geopolitics, to obviously the elections, to community news.
Joanna:You know, you talk about print.
Joanna:We have a local print product that's really connected to the, the DC and sort of surrounding areas.
Joanna:And it's a very important part of that community life.
Joanna:Is it, our fastest growing product?
Joanna:No.
Joanna:but I do think actually when it comes to our print product, we, we buck some of the trends that the industry is seeing.
Joanna:But this is not a print conversation, this is a broader conversation.
Joanna:So, let's start with the fact that the idea that news is a category, Encompasses everything feels a little antiquated and that if we're really to build a healthy Ecosystem for the news business, which I also think we can all agree on right?
Joanna:We all agree that we need trusted journalism as a Fundamental part of a democratic society.
Joanna:I mean, I believe in that I believe that you believe in that.
Joanna:Yeah,
Brian:no, I'm in favor.
Brian:You're in favor of that?
Brian:I'm not going to take the other side.
Brian:David, you take the other side?
Brian:We're all in favor.
Brian:All right,
Joanna:let's establish some shared principles here.
Joanna:Then I do think you have to be a little bit more sophisticated in the way that you think about news as a category.
Joanna:Now, of course, block lists have had a big impact on the digital advertising business for news companies.
Joanna:and I, I, I see some good work being done by some of the sort of more established players, but also some really cool, interesting startups that are beginning to think differently about how to provide brand suitability tools.
Joanna:but first and foremost, I think we have to stop saying news is this big category and it's bad for advertisers.
Joanna:The data shows that that's not the case.
Joanna:The technology is starting to help us get better at providing brand suitability and brand safety.
Joanna:environment, brand safe environments.
Joanna:and altogether, it's part of our responsibility.
Joanna:If you're in this industry to find ways to support trusted journalism, the reality of it is, is that we are on a massive moment of change.
Joanna:Yes, of course, the Washington Post is in, in it right now, right?
Joanna:We are in the middle of our Redesigning our future, but the whole industry is in a moment of massive change.
Joanna:And if we don't actually get in front of it and start to have Honest dialogue and conversations, then we could be in a situation in a decade, in less than a decade, where trusted journalism, trusted news, trusted environments for brands has really decreased.
Brian:Yeah, I was talking to someone actually here earlier, and he made the point that it was almost like climate change, and that we might all of a sudden look back and be like, I can't believe we let this happen.
Brian:and it was happening as.
Brian:You know, it's happening in front of us.
Brian:but I
Joanna:mean, it really is.
Brian:And so David, what, how do you diagnose the issue and, and break it down between like, how much is a product issue?
Brian:Like how much is it a, a business model issue?
Brian:and how much of it is almost a communication issue?
David:Sure, so first I think it's, I was thrilled to participate here because of all the reasons we, we just mentioned.
David:I mean, it is a really important thing for society for all of us to help trusted, professional journalism thrive.
David:And I think we can all agree on that.
David:And I think the implications on society are huge.
David:are really going to be very damaging if we don't do that, so I think we need to ensure that we change the narrative.
David:We are trying to do this through, narratives of bringing brand dollars back to journalism, and I think this is an important effort for all of us.
David:So I was reading Kate's, numbers, and I had exactly the same.
David:Wow, exciting.
David:It's growing, and then it's declining, it's declining, then we get to our part of the world.
David:So first I was trying to Separate between print and digital publishers.
David:So maybe it's not as bad as you said And I would say I mean we're a public company.
David:I can't give forecast of numbers, but we actually We're global, but we do about a billion dollars in advertising 60 percent outside the US for in the rest We see in the second half growth and we're very dependent on on the publisher industry.
David:So we do see on digital growth as we focus.
David:But, so, so specifically, and I think we need to look at news is very broad, and we face it a lot with advertisers who Want to block and then we need to talk to them and say if you want to block let's not block news Publishers by their title, but let's at least I mean the minimum we can do and that's easy
David:with product is Just block segments if you don't want to be next to certain news pages But anything we can do more as a tech company and we're doing more in terms of even that I think we need to educate the market communication in terms of these news pages Even the news pages not the lifestyle or entertainment.
David:This is I mean, why wouldn't you be okay?
David:To be next to an entertainment or lifestyle or sports page.
David:I mean, there's no content there that's controversial on on I don't know the sports section
Kate:I've not seen evidence that says Consumers are you know, think more negatively about a brand if they appear next to news that it just doesn't exactly so I
David:think Taking that and then let's go to the core of the problem, the hard news pages and how do we change that because that is still a, if you look at percentage of the total traffic goes there.
David:So A, it's a really valuable audience that's from a demographic point of view sort of interested in that.
David:So there's a lot you can conclude on that audience from the context and we're doing that to really create better targeting.
David:We came up with something called predictive audiences, a lot of it based on context.
David:And then.
David:I do think we can limit the blocking to really pages that are problematic.
David:But if there are brands and CMOs and agencies that just say, I don't want to be on a Title of a brand that is a news.
David:I mean that's very problematic for society and that's something we need to communicate and work I think this podcast is one one of the ways to impact
Joanna:I mean, I think there's there's lots and lots to discuss in that I'm a couple of points that I do think it's worth focusing on the first is and you should both mention it Which is around audience when we're talking about news as a category And even if it is in sort of more of the core news product you're talking about a highly engaged You Highly influential audience paying attention to content that could influence perhaps their professional, but suddenly they're professional and their personal lives, right?
Joanna:and and that mindset, that level of engagement, that type of audience is hugely valuable to brands.
Joanna:So that's the first thing.
Joanna:I think that if you approach it with an audience first mindset, then you can very quickly get to that.
Joanna:Oh, I see the benefits of being part again of this ecosystem.
Joanna:The second point that you raised there, David, around CMOs.
Joanna:I don't think the problem in my experience is that CMOs don't want to be part of, or have news, or you know, specifically The Washington Post is part of their media mix.
Joanna:They see the value in it, they're, they're readers of our content.
Joanna:CCOs the same.
Joanna:I think the challenge is, is that the further you get sort of through the procurement process, if you will, to actually the transactions, that's when we start to really encompass the problem.
Joanna:So, Both when it's the responsibility of someone that doesn't have the same relationship or appreciation with news, or when it's tech that is, to your point, sort of blocking us without necessarily the sophistication that it needs.
Brian:I mean it's a CYA problem, right?
Brian:I mean, it doesn't seem like, to your point, we could invade the brand innovator space and, and, um, ITR
Joanna:space is right next door.
Joanna:Oh, just come to the Washington
Brian:Post.
Brian:And I don't think many CMOs will, will be saying, no, we don't want anything to do with the news.
Brian:Cause they're up there talking, and all this other stuff.
Brian:Um, but when it filters down sometimes on the agency level, I'm told, you know, there, you know, when those plans get put into place.
Brian:That there is, look, people turn to brand safety vendors and you're blocking domestic violence.
Brian:It makes no sense.
Brian:and there is in my view still, and I've heard this repeatedly, this fear of screenshots.
Brian:Like, you know, nobody wants to screenshot to ruin their weekend.
Brian:what do you think needs to, to happen on the, the buy side?
Brian:Or does anything need to happen?
Brian:Is it just the.
Brian:I think one of the, the other questions I have is just like, maybe it just doesn't work well enough because these risks would be worth taking.
Brian:You know, people return, brands had no problem giving up on their boycotts on YouTube.
Brian:They had no problem doing that.
Kate:I think there's, it's not going to exist the same way it has, right?
Kate:We have to agree that the world changes.
Kate:Generally, we have seen increasing globalization across businesses and particularly media and content.
Kate:And I think that creates a different, level for various, not every organization is going to be the same.
Kate:You mentioned you're a global company.
Kate:I think that helps multinational, larger national and global advertisers, global audiences, right?
Kate:I mean, the thing when you are on a, you know, platform like a, a YouTube or a meta, that's all global content.
Kate:There are no, barriers in that sense, right?
Kate:So the ability for, and I think what, where the Washington Post and, and others like it, like the New York Times will do well, they've been more able to, as larger businesses that are covering more global news, more national news, to be able to get subscribers and advertiser dollars.
Kate:And I think where the, the, a larger problem is probably the more local newspapers, and we've seen that already to some extent.
Kate:And But to the extent that, you know, news organizations can create a bit more parody and more of a national and global orientation potentially is also beneficial because that's increasingly the way that advertisers, both large brands and smaller and medium sized advertisers, are oriented.
Kate:It's just the way of the world.
David:to add it I think your point on the example of youtube is is a very good one I think we can help with communication and influencing is changing a little bit the mindset But at the end of the day, I think what's going to change it is can we deliver value for advertisers with those audiences?
David:I mean that that's that's really the question and I think Yes, we can.
David:And I think there's a lot of technology.
David:The audience profile is very interesting.
David:I think you can create better attention engagement.
David:I mean, we are working a lot on these things and I think, I think that's the key at the end, it's economically driven if we show the value.
David:The dollars will be there.
David:Sorry.
David:I mean it is a economic machine.
David:We're in a capitalistic society.
David:So just show the We're all in
Brian:favor of capitalism, yes.
Brian:So just show the return.
Brian:Just show
Joanna:the return.
Joanna:And capitalism.
Joanna:No,
David:show the return on ad spend, whether it's a performance campaign, show the high level of awareness that your branding campaign got.
David:And the dollars will be there, but we have to combine it because that's not enough.
David:We also have to change the perception, but that's not enough.
David:Then you need to show that the value is there.
David:And I think, I think it's there.
David:And I think it's just our work to prove it.
Joanna:I think David, you're doing a really good job of explaining how complex and complicated the work that we're doing is right now.
Joanna:And, and, and part of that, and I sort of, this isn't like a, You know, media planner problem.
Joanna:We allowed ourselves to be the metric of success to be sort of reach and efficiency in a world where a we didn't really, we weren't able to play that as well as much, much larger properties.
Joanna:but then we, we took away actually the value that we bring to our partners, which is not about reach and efficiency and low cost e CPMs.
Joanna:And yes, of course, we can do some of the lower funnel work.
Joanna:It's about that upper funnel brand, that quality engagement with a with a powerful audience.
Joanna:And I, and again, I think, no, this isn't a Washington Post thing.
Joanna:I think this is an industry.
Joanna:We have a tendency to sort of really swing with the kind of cool, interesting or the, You know, the most talked about thing and reach and scale was that for a really long time.
Joanna:And so that's the place that we found ourselves playing.
Joanna:And I actually think that we are much better as a platform or so it's a partner.
Joanna:When you think about us from this highly engaged, important audience, that can do quality work with, with good ROI.
Brian:Well, I mean, that's a great point.
Brian:Cause I mean, you mentioned news, not as a monolith category, which is a good reminder because business news does not have these problems, you know, yeah.
Brian:you know, you can sell out of display regularly at the journal and Bloomberg and that exists on news pages.
Brian:how do you change?
Brian:I mean, look, mostly.
Brian:It seems brands don't want any part of the politics stuff.
Brian:I know that there can be study after study that, that couldn't show this.
Brian:There's tons of studies that also show that companies lose out when they stop advertising during a recession.
Brian:Every recession I've, I've, I think I've been through three or four.
Brian:They immediately stop advertising.
Brian:They don't pay attention to that.
Brian:The CFO is like, I don't know what you're talking about.
Joanna:And you're like, don't you think they're like, this is your moment to cut through, man.
Joanna:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Joanna:I'm like,
Brian:I was like, Ad Age has those queued up for every recession.
Brian:It's like, let's go.
Brian:Never works.
Brian:How do you, I mean, is it just the fact that you need to segment these in that you are going to have a section of your inventory that's basically almost unmonetizable through advertising, and it has to be, it has to be monetized through subscriptions and licensing, versus ads, because I don't know if you're going to convince
Joanna:Yeah.
Joanna:I mean, it's, it's interesting, right?
Joanna:Because you are absolutely correct that the content, the politics, the campaign content drives the, the highest subscriptions.
Joanna:So we're really lucky at the Washington Post that we have a already diversified business model that we have both a healthy subs and a healthy advertising business.
Joanna:and that the content that the subscribers or drives more subscribers and actually may was, The highest month for subscriptions in the last, I think, 18 months.
Joanna:I have an amazing partner, Carl Wells, who, you know, who's, who's leading this business and we've built a much more sophisticated customer led paywall.
Joanna:So you're right that the, the, the politics coverage, the campaign messaging is not going to be the place.
Joanna:Where I focus our advertising investment or, or strategy really.
Joanna:Now, of course you can monetize that programmatically and it's not that it doesn't have any ad value.
Joanna:The ad value though is primarily on the audience subscription side.
Joanna:So we put that in our amazing editorial team continues to, you know, break scoops and having amazing work in that space.
Joanna:Excellent.
Joanna:We can monetize it through audience and subscriptions.
Joanna:What what's interesting is then when you start to look at other parts of our, of our content portfolio, if you think about it like that, business tech economics, that is the highest converting for subscriptions and the highest generating for advertisers.
Joanna:You're spot on.
Joanna:Like if you're in a B2B space, or if you're in a vertical content area, and I worked at the FT and at the journal, that business, that business It can resist some of the sort of market volatility that you see in more of the consumer space.
Joanna:So I think that us investing and continuing to grow out our core news product, business, tech, some sports we'd probably put in there as well, because that's sort of the right sort of pipe of audience.
Joanna:That is a great way for us to grow our advertising business.
Joanna:What's really exciting is is the fact that we have also said that that's not all we do.
Joanna:Over the last two, three years, we have invested very heavily into service journalism.
Joanna:And I know I'm on a podcast, but I'm not sure I love the term service journalism, but it's the how to.
Joanna:It's the well being, it's the travel, it's the recipes, it's, it's the content that I think has got a more dynamic relationship with the audience, you're sort of posing questions and getting answers versus the slightly more didactic core news.
Joanna:So what now we're saying, actually, this whole bucket of journalism can also play a role.
Joanna:Be a really great opportunity for us to, to monetize and diversify our business.
Joanna:We just have to think about it differently.
Joanna:It just shouldn't sit in the same bucket as us politics or core news, right?
Joanna:It needs to sit in a sort of differentiated area and how we monetize that could look really different from partnerships, maybe affiliate.
Joanna:but I think also in the way you're thinking about micro payments, I mean, the way that you think about flexible payments, but most importantly, reaching our audiences, wherever they are.
Joanna:And that.
Joanna:is a moment that the news industry has come to, which is that next generation of news consumers aren't necessarily going to come to the Washington Post to consume their news.
Joanna:They're going to consume it elsewhere.
Joanna:So we have to meet them there.
Brian:Yeah.
Brian:So Kate, I think one of the big things that I took away from your report was this pronounced shift to performance, right?
Brian:And it's not there's streaming, like that is, is more engagement.
Brian:But I think about, I joke, like, that performance marketing basically ate the industry.
Brian:I used to cover direct marketing and it was just this backwater.
Brian:and then all of a sudden it got rebranded performance marketing and it became sexier.
Brian:but everything has moved to stuff you can measure and that can lead to direct sales.
Brian:And we're seeing advertising blur with commerce.
Brian:And I think you've dealt with a lot of that with how to even define what advertising is these days.
Kate:Yeah, very tricky.
Kate:I think blur is the right term.
Kate:Word, right?
Kate:I think we're going to continue to see more and more blur, such that we're not having these distinctions between brand upper funnel and Dr, you know, direct response, lower funnel, that more of it exists within a continuum within a spectrum and that every, you know, because there is brand lift to, performance ads and there are elements, could be elements of, you know, purchase tied to a big anthemic CTV campaign.
Kate:Why not?
Kate:Right.
Kate:So I think it's partly about not putting things in these rigid buckets that, that need to exist there.
Kate:and then also, you know, thinking about the different ways that, digital properties can be used.
Kate:It doesn't have to just be that, lower funnel direct response, but it has been, I think, attractive to marketers in the ability to tie media to a, an outcome, but increasingly we'll be able to see that across, you know, more and more surfaces and touch points.
Kate:The Wanamaker quote
Brian:is not trotted out as much as it used to be, basically.
Brian:Because you don't have to settle for half not working or not knowing.
Brian:At least for me.
Brian:From the viewer.
Brian:So what I worry about, and I want to bring you in on this, David, is that there's a lot of well meaning panels around can not that people talk about one thing and can and do something different because that would never happen.
Brian:But I think it's really problematic in the long run if supporting news becomes the sort of message is if it's like a charity, because we do live in capitalist societies and it needs to.
Brian:Perform in quotes.
David:I agree.
David:That's what I said.
David:I mean at the end we can talk about it It's nice to talk about but it is a reality and in in economics So first I think in terms of even brand campaigns today into performance question They're looking for measurable outcomes when we launched onyx outbrand, which is our brand building Product which was different than our performance.
David:We very much focused around driving proving attention And using a lot of the predictive technologies that drive performance and bringing them to brand awareness And then the next step of of it is when we have the opportunity We work about 7 000 publishers is to connect that brand building campaign immediately on on the feed Into a conversion or a lead or consideration so the ability to do all of that for brand but also on the upper funnel It's a different world.
David:I mean it it's sort of blurry line because they They also need to see real return on their dollars.
David:I want to make one more comment on your newspaper.
David:So I think going back to that, if I may, for the last, last time, I mean, news is a big category and politics and elections is one, but there's a lot of other news too.
David:I was just coming out of a meeting with one agency, not news, another agency.
David:And I tried on them and they said, listen, you have no chance this year when the elections are so controversial and the discourse is what it is.
David:To convince a brand on that.
David:I said, Okay, but when you look at news, I mean, there's a lot of other things that are not just Trump and Biden or other elections around the world.
David:So I think we just need to continue and work on on sort of proving the value of these audiences.
David:And yes, I mean, there's certain things that are gonna always be blocked.
David:I think people don't want to be associated with negative political campaigning.
David:I don't think, I mean, it's a waste of time to try and change that.
David:I agree with you.
David:People don't want to be next to war pages with images.
David:That, but then you have tons of other news that are just news.
David:I mean, about economics and other things.
David:And by blocking the news section, You're creating a, a huge damage to society again coming back to that.
David:So I think the technology is there to do it and we're doing it.
David:So we are able to then when we analyze our 7, 000 publishers, I know which pages are war related, which pages are election related and what percent it is.
David:And, and we're trying to package it in a sort of optimized supply path to, to just do packages that would meet those, those requirements and still not.
David:Block out all news.
David:I mean,
Kate:there are 16, more than 16 billion dollars of political advertising revenue just this year.
Kate:So Yes.
David:They will fuel the second half a little bit.
David:So, that's why I'm not as negative on the
Joanna:The, the interesting thing about the performance, sort of fixation on the moment is that I, I find that this is quite cyclical, right?
Joanna:So I find that perhaps in a moment when actually CMOs are really being tied to performance of a company, then they go to, you know, much lower funnel again, tactics or performance type marketing.
Joanna:They've got to be able to point to that, you know, return on investment.
Joanna:And then within 18 months or less, suddenly realized they've taken their eyes off the brand story and sort of pivot back into the brand story.
Joanna:So I like what you say that actually smart campaigns and smart partners can do both.
Joanna:And like, there's a blurred line between it just because something's a great brand story doesn't mean it can't actually deliver, you know, leads and demand gen type related activity.
Joanna:but the, the clearest thing is you've got to set out with the intention.
Joanna:Right.
Joanna:Why are you working with the partner?
Joanna:What is the expectation on the ROI?
Joanna:And how can you make sure that you can actually optimize towards that?
Joanna:and one of the things that we haven't talked about here at all is the implications around AI in both advertising in terms of like the actual ecosystem and the efficiencies and the operational efficiencies that it might bring in some of the Enhancements to creativity.
Joanna:But I think from a, again, performance point of view, the, the way that we actually talk about performance or measure it is going to change dramatically, very quickly.
Joanna:And so I feel confident that first our quality audience with, you know, the first party data that we have, the premium environment is going to ultimately be able to deliver on those results.
Brian:Talk to me more about that.
Brian:Like, how are you going to be able to, cause ultimately I would guess whether it's a buyer or a marketer would say.
Brian:Trying to show me that this is working like it.
Brian:I've got closed closed loop attribution systems I put money in like everyone wants a vendor a customer vending machine Yeah, they feed quarters in and then they just customers come out.
Brian:and That is what?
Brian:Platforms and retail media are going into the market with so what what what the picture that you saw that?
Joanna:That's why people come to the Washington Post now you talked about this the other week You This is a quality over quantity platform.
Joanna:Our work, the news we're producing, the audience that we curate, that we have, this isn't about scale and efficiency.
Joanna:I've said that already, and I think as such that the performance marketing, attribution type, Campaigns is not where we are.
Joanna:The first partner.
Joanna:I think we could be additive in that space.
Joanna:And we also have a big network.
Joanna:It's like 200 million, unique off platform of our content so we can provide some scale.
Joanna:But I would that's not where I send my team to play, right?
Joanna:I want my team to build really excellent client direct often, but sort of senior level agency relationships that understand the value of news.
Joanna:This isn't a charity.
Joanna:You're not doing us a favor.
Joanna:We're going to give you the opportunity to reach the people that have again, the impact to change your business outcomes, your potential, your political outcomes.
Joanna:And then also some of your like personal decisions.
Joanna:I think it's important.
Joanna:It can't be, put into a bucket of like, Oh, did that deliver the, you know, lowest fun or cheapest part of it?
Joanna:That's not, that's not what we play.
Kate:If you want to grow and if all the other money is moving to the platforms, you are going to eventually need to be able to create an argument that says, here's why your money is better spent here than on those platforms.
Kate:And I agree with a point you made earlier around making sure that we're talking about Metrics, not just in the way that people maybe have been trained by some of the, the platforms around what is or isn't important, but actually around really looking at what
Brian:metrics they do well on.
Brian:Yes.
Kate:And we've talked
Joanna:about like time spent and engagement.
Joanna:Is it metrics?
Joanna:It's so long.
Joanna:But there's a lot of proven
David:metrics that say we deliver to advertise, otherwise they wouldn't be spending more.
David:So whether it's on performance or on attention, on engagement and attribution and, and that, I think these are things that we do and we need to prove that the value of the audience is.
David:It's phenomenal on the open internet and that's why advertisers will ship those dollars back from all the other places that they're growing in the graphs and, you know.
Brian:Alright, on that hopeful note, David, Kate, Joanna, thank you so much for joining me and thank you to GroupM for hosting us.
Brian:Thank you.
Brian:Thanks.
Brian:Thank you very much.
