Category results for "Revenue"

This Q&A interview is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights… If you want to learn more, keep an eye out on our site for more interviews. Today’s Three on Three is with Colin Decker, Group Operating Officer of Discovery Digital Networks, on Putting Data to Work.

Q: Please describe the value of data to your editorial or sales efforts:

A: Having a solid foundation of data-driven decision-making is really mandatory at this point. You simply must have a well-defined methodology for the “why” of using data as well as talent and staffing to handle the “how”. And it’s not just a matter of generating reports. To really use data means that every member of your team must feel confident asking questions and be enabled to proactively seek the answers without depending on a separate research group. At Discovery Digital Networks, we use a combination of publicly available data sources as well as a series of proprietary purpose-built systems to inform what we do day-in and day-out. On both the Editorial and Sales sides of our businesses, the ability to react in real-time to audience demand is a critical capability as we define the digital video marketplace.

Q: Please describe a recent content or advertising initiative that leveraged data, how it did so, and how that generated a better end result:

A: We spend a lot of time mining data for signals and trends. At Discovery Digital Networks, we have many shows that publish multiple times per day so a typical exercise is to look at topic and category performance throughout the week. DNews is our twice-daily science and curiosity show that covers all types of weird, geeky cool facts. As we mined audience, engagement and sharing data over the course of several months, we noticed a small signal that seemed to indicate that space-themed programming performed better on Fridays. To test the signal, we created “Space Fridays” and saw a near 4x increase in all our audience metrics. The next natural question is “why space and why Friday?” but for now, we’re content to have better served the DNews audience with what they are wanting to see from us.

Q: The notion of “data” raises concerns with some. Please describe your take on the issues around publishers’ use of data and how you address some of the common concerns/issues:

A: It’s a reasonable concern when you think of user retargeting or leveraging transactional data to inform programming selection. While it’s great when Netflix makes a relevant movie suggestion based on your prior consumption, I don’t think I want my Kindle to suggest “Mr. Mom” because I just ordered diapers online! On a more serious level, the Edward Snowden NSA affair has opened everyone’s eyes to the fact that you don’t need to break the law to invade privacy. Data “triangulation” threatens to open too much information up to bad guys and marketers alike. I think we’ll see an inflection point in the coming 2 years where the average consumer grows to understand this and we’ll see more meaningful push-back to the harvesting and misuse of personal data.

Colin Decker is a media leader who has played a guiding role in the confluence of Television, web, video and social media. He has held programming, strategy and executive management roles at Current TV, Yahoo! and Virgin Investments. Colin is a frequent speaker on emerging media and has held teaching appointments at Boston University and Harvard University.

Note: This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights.

Also in this series:

Q&A: Vikram Somaya, GM Weather FX, The Weather Company on Putting Data to Work

Perspectives | Revenue

Q&A With Jeff Misenti, Chief Digital Officer, Fox News on Cross-Platform Advertising

March 24, 2014 Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN

This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights… If you want to learn more, keep an eye out on our site for more interviews. Today’s Three on Three interview is with Jeff Misenti, Chief Digital Officer, Fox News on the subject of cross-platform advertising.

Q: What is the biggest hurdle in creating, selling and delivering cross-platform advertising initiatives?

A:I think that the biggest hurdle is the coordination and collaboration of all the parties involved. This includes the internal coordination among our Editorial, Production, Programming, and Sales Team. There is also communication with the Agency and the Client that must be clear and accounted for. All of these pieces need to fuse together seamlessly in order to reach our shared goal.

Q: Describe a recent or forthcoming cross-platform advertising campaign that you think is particularly innovative or successful:

A:We are currently exploring a campaign, featured once a week, which has a natural extension to a live online component. A prospective client approached us looking for ways to engage the audience into a custom campaign. Fox News Channel has a particular show that digitally engages with its audience during live tapings. We are working with both the show teams and advertisers to develop a Google Hangout where we can draw in viewers in to interact live with show talent.

Q: How do you approach the cross-platform sale organizationally?

A:In every organization, internal priorities differ. In order to succeed and create winning cross platform initiatives everyone must conform, at times, while also staying true to his or her own goals and responsibilities for the organization.

The sales cycle might require more time and resources to be collaborative and creative with clients and agencies to propose innovative campaigns. This approach may mean that we have more work to do to integrate the campaign; but again to my point – the execution of the planning stages is just as if not more crucial to launching a successful program. All parties put in a lot of time, effort and money and we need to make sure it isn’t wasted. And if we are successful with our advertisers, they are coming back proactively for ideas around new initiatives and campaigns.

It is also important to develop trust across the organization. As basic as it sounds, we all tend to overcomplicate things. If you and your peers are looking out for each other’s objectives in these situations, there will always be trust – and with hard work and trust, comes victory.

Jeff Misenti is the Chief Digital Officer for the Fox News and Fox Business networks. In this role he is responsible for the strategic direction of the products under Fox News’ digital portfolio. As a digital media veteran of 12 years, Misenti joined Fox News Network in 2007 to manage the success and growing presence of the Fox News and Fox Business digital properties. Coupled with his previous knowledge gained at Dow Jones/MarketWatch – where he constructed business-to-business and consumer business units – he has acquired the expertise of leading the most successful branded media websites. His wealth of knowledge and experience has garnered him a passion and successful presence in digital media.

Note: This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights.

Also in this series:

Q&A With Greg Jackson, Chief Data Officer, Everyday Health Inc. on Cross-Platform Advertising

Q&A with Neil Johnston, Cox’s EVP of Strategy & Digital Innovation on Premium Programmatic

Perspectives | Revenue

Q&A with Rachelle Considine, President Future US, on Cross-Platform Advertising

March 19, 2014 Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN

This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights… If you want to learn more, keep an eye out on our site for more interviews. Today’s Three on Three interview is with Rachelle Considine, President Future US on the subject of cross-platform advertising.

Q: What is the biggest hurdle in creating, selling and delivering a cross-platform advertising initiative?

A: One of the biggest hurdles we face is changing the mindset of the client/advertiser. Our users have migrated cross-platform and expect to have a seamless experience when they consume our content across various platforms. However, the advertiser does not always see the same value of an impression across platform. To help mitigate this issue, we sell one digital impression to our clients unless specified “mobile only”, “desktop only”, etc. We believe that the value should be the same if not more if you reach a person in the environment of their choice.

We recently overhauled GamesRadar to not only be a mobile optimized site but also incorporate responsive design. This has helped us with the battle as our ad performance has increased and the feedback we have received from the advertising community has been extremely positive.

Q: Describe a recent cross-platform advertising campaign that you think is particularly innovative or successful:

A: One recent cross-platform campaign we ran was for Activision’s Call of Duty: Ghosts title. We ran their creative across the desktop, mobile and tablet versions of GamesRadar. It served the advertiser’s need to reach their target wherever they were accessing gaming content.

Really, this comes back to our revamp of GamesRadar. We know that gamers are not on desktops anymore and we needed to make this site not just mobile-optimized, but truly responsive. It was important that we had a launch sponsor on board who understood what we were doing, one that is really out there testing the marketplace. We worked closely with Activision’s agency and made sure their creative looked great across screens.

In the past, our click through rate—which I am not a fan of as a measure—was not as high as our competitors. Well, Activision reported that we were the best performing site of all the gaming platforms they worked with. They got it: Activision loved the fact that the experience is built for the audience in their specific environments. It is crazy to say, but some advertisers still don’t get it. Their mindset is stuck in the desktop.

Q: How do you approach the cross-platform sale organizationally?

A:When I joined Future in 2009, one of the first things we did was combine the sales teams. Everyone became responsible for selling across all platforms. We further consolidated the teams and they now not only sell across platform but also across brands. This has allowed us to compete for bigger advertising dollars and non-endemic clients. This was not an easy thing to do. We actually had to approach it as “change the mindset or change the people.”

We are way past the magazine sale. We don’t sell games; we don’t sell technology. We sell audience. With the cross-platform, cross-brand approach we can give advertisers a larger total reach or allow them to go after a specific audience. At the end of the day, we create content people care about. We enable the advertiser to reach an audience that is engaged and influential with their peers.

As President, Rachelle Considine oversees all of Future U.S. and is a member of Future PLC’s global management board. Previously, in her role as Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Considine led all marketing and sales across Future’s games, technology, and men’s special-interest markets. She drew on her expertise in working with some of the world’s most well known brands, including Best Buy, Hyundai and 7-11, to apply new ways to connect with readers and partners to grow the company and viewership. Considine joined Future U.S. in 2009 as General Manager of the Games Advertising Group. Prior to joining Future, Considine served as Vice President of Sales for What They Like, Inc. and earlier in her career, she held several management roles in the video game industry, notably as the National Sales Director for Fox Interactive Media/IGN Entertainment and MySpace Games Group. Considine began her media career partnering with such clients as PeopleSoft, Edmunds.com and WesternUnion.com as an offline media planner, and served as an online media planner for Starcom Worldwide and Starcom IP.

Note: This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights.

Also in this series:

Q&A With Greg Jackson, Chief Data Officer, Everyday Health Inc. on Cross-Platform Advertising

Q&A With Jeff Misenti, Chief Digital Officer, Fox News on Cross-Platform Advertising

Revenue

Q&A With Greg Jackson, Chief Data Officer, Everyday Health Inc. on Cross-Platform Advertising

March 17, 2014 DCN

This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights… If you want to learn more, keep an eye out on our site for more interviews. Today’s Three on Three interview is with Greg Jackson, Chief Data Officer, Everyday Health Inc. on the subject of cross-platform advertising.

Q: What is the biggest hurdle in creating, selling and delivering cross-platform advertising initiatives?

A:The biggest challenge in cross-platform communication is the accurate and timely linking of users’ attributes across devices. Many publishers have the capability to personalize an experience or target advertising to specific segments within a single platform. However, without a mechanism to identify the same user as they migrate between devices, the continuity of content and advertising messaging, as well as, measurement is lost.

At Everyday Health, user registration provides the foundation for our cross-channel attribution. With over 65 million users and a third of all US physicians registered on our properties, we are able to bring together an individual’s activity and interests to provide a seamless targeting platform for content and marketing.

Similar to Pandora personalizing a music experience, Everyday Health personalizes health content. An Everyday Health registered user specifies their initial health interests, and our content personalization engine begins customizing their experience on site and in newsletters, regardless of the access device. As a user provides feedback into what they like or don’t like, the targeting algorithm becomes further refined for a better, more relevant experience that delivers higher engagement.

The same applies to the user targeting capabilities we provide our advertising partners. As a user migrates between devices, our registration data and shared ad serving platform, facilitate the continuity of a marketer’s campaign. More importantly, we are able to measure the impact of those campaigns on a user’s offline behavior for true ROI measurement.

All of this is made possible by a singular data platform that provides a holistic view of a user’s interests and activities and a capacity to leverage that information in real-time across platforms. At Everyday Health, we have invested well over $100 million to aggregate and engage our registered audience with personalized content and marketing because relevancy matters.

Q: Describe one of your recent or forthcoming cross-platform advertising campaigns that you think is particularly innovative or successful.

A:We believe that every digital campaign is a cross-platform campaign regardless of whether it’s intended or not. Users will access content whenever, wherever and on whatever device they want and it is our job as digital publishers and marketers to migrate our messaging across these platforms. We deliver most campaigns to the target user agnostic to platform, instead optimizing for engagement and offline impact.

Everyday Health has been delivering cross-platform solutions in digital for over ten years, and are now beginning a new cross-platform integration between digital and TV. We have matched our health audience to set-top box data to better understand the TV programming that specific user segments are watching. We are now working with a major pharmaceutical company to concentrate their TV marketing to those stations and programs where their target audience over-indexes. While 1:1 addressable TV at scale is still developing, this new audience-centric approach across TV and digital platforms will amplify the media dollar impact of both channels and deliver ROI improvement.

Q: How do you approach the cross-platform sale organizationally?

A:Our sales team is solution oriented, not aligned by channel. We understand that a marketer’s key objective is to inform and motivate their target audience to take action. It’s our responsibility to know our audience, provide engaging solutions across devices, and then optimize delivery based on the real behavior impact each is having. To be successful at this, we cannot be constrained by channel silos but instead leverage the best delivery mechanism for driving consumers to take action.

As audiences become more mobile, marketers are beginning to acknowledge the need for cross-platform buys. The channel specific agencies, budgets, and strategies are beginning to converge and our investment in audience, data and platform will insure we can successfully support their objectives for the future.

Greg Jackson is the Chief Data Officer for Everyday Health. As CDO, Jackson is responsible for establishing data acquisition and utilization strategies for the firm and he is directly responsible for the company’s Precision Health Data Institute. Jackson also oversees Health Reach, the company’s off-portfolio targeted media solution. Prior to joining Everyday Health, Jackson served as President and CMO of Fathead. He has 20+ years’ experience in operations management and direct marketing, with a focus on cross-channel marketing, user engagement and lifetime value optimization, and audience monetization.

Note: This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights.

Also in this series:

Q&A with Rachelle Considine, President Future US, on Cross-Platform Advertising

Revenue

Forbes Brand Licensing is Upwardly Mobile

March 12, 2014 Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN

Brand licensing might seem like a no-brainer in the media business. However for others to want to hitch their idea to your brand, you need to have one that is recognizable for all the right reasons. You also need to make smart decisions about which licensing deals will work for you in more than just the financial sense. Forbes Media COO Mike Federle says that while he was brought into the company two and a half years ago to do the usual operational stuff expected of a COO, his “primary focus is on business development and leveraging the brand to develop new, non-advertising revenue.”

And he’s been doing just that. His latest licensing deal grants Lotaris SA the rights to the name Forbes Digital Commerce, which provides mobile payment-based services and solutions to various industry sectors. Announced at Mobile World Congress, this arrangement associates the Forbes brand with mobile payments, which is a win on all counts according to Federle. In addition to the up-front licensing payment and annual royalties based on the total revenue of Forbes Digital Commerce, he says “On the brand level, we think this is a great place to be, given that mobile is such an important business tool.”

There are three primary questions in Federle’s litmus test for analyzing potential brand-licensing deals:

1. Does it fit the brand?

2. Is this a reputable partner?

3. Can this opportunity scale?

It is essential to develop a solid criteria for maintaining hard-won brand equity. The issue of scale is also significant, “We turn down a lot of opportunities because they aren’t big enough. We are focusing on bigger plays. Mobile is a much bigger business.”

As is Real Estate, which Federle points to as another example of brand-licensing that passed his litmus test. Last year, the company worked with Century Properties group in the Philippines to build the world’s first “Forbes Media Tower.” That move heralded the “beginning of a Real Estate Play in Asia,” which associates the brand with booming markets and high-end business developments.

As Forbes magazine might council its readers, Federle says Forbes Media must “align with where the future is going.” And the future is undoubtedly mobile. “What is happening at Forbes and throughout the industry, is that our digital business has grown very large. And over the last year, we see approximately 30% of our traffic at Forbes.com coming from Mobile devices, up from about 25% the previous year. We know that in media, and business in general, there’s huge and rapid transitioning over to mobile.”

However one particularly appealing aspect of the Forbes Digital Commerce deal was its association with mobile payments. “Mobile is already big. Where the real takeoff will be is when we get rid of the friction that is in the system now, and we want to be part of a solution that helps create a seamless flow—across carriers, currencies and borders.”

Perspectives | Revenue

Q&A with Peter Longo, CEO IDG TechNetwork & CDO IDG Communications, on Premium Programmatic

March 10, 2014 Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN

This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights… If you want to learn more, keep an eye out on our site for more interviews. Today’s Three on Three interview is with Peter Longo, CEO IDG TechNetwork & CDO IDG Communications on the subject of “Premium Programmatic” advertising.

Q: How would you define premium programmatic as it compares to what we’ve come to know as “programmatic advertising”?

A:Quite honestly, the definition is constantly changing. What we thought was programmatic two years ago, and what we thought it was six months ago, and where it is today are all very different. As advertisers continue to experiment, this definition is going to keep shifting. Ask me in a month what it means.

When we talk about premium programmatic at IDG Communications, part of it has to do with how the inventory is positioned and structured, and part the advertisers we deal with. At IDG TechNetwork, premium programmatic actually competes with our direct-sold inventory. However, while our IDG owned and operated brands such as Computerworld and CIO still have brand-specific reps, for the IDG TechNetwork, we have combined teams so that advertisers can deal with the same rep much of the time.

We position premium programmatic the same way we do all of our sales: What is the audience you are trying to reach, what are the campaign parameters, and how can we best deliver results? The conversation starts the same way we’ve always approached it. We talk about their objectives, who they are trying to reach and what they are trying to achieve.

Q: Describe the way in which your organization handles programmatic?

A:Five years ago, we decided to create our TechNetwork, which includes more than 500 publisher sites, as a way to provide scale to our owned and operated business. Three years ago, we decided to go into programmatic because, as a network, we had a lot of programmatic at our disposal and wanted to deal with it effectively.

The way we use premium programmatic gives us the ability to create micro audiences at scale. For example, say an advertiser wants to reach people interested in cloud computing at companies with more than 500 employees. With data and programmatic, you can build a sizeable audience even for something really targeted. Now we’ve got our owned and operated sites and the network inventory combine that with first-party data, and that gives us a demand-side platform so we can buy programmatically, as well increase the size of these audiences.

The data makes a big difference. It allows us to create this micro audience and use creative rotation to deliver the most value. When an impression is served, we factor in what we know about the person behind the impression: Have they visited our sites? Have they read any articles that are part of our product suite? Have they visited our shopping cart? This information lets us figure out where they are in the buying cycle so we can serve the right ad, be that one that is for someone just starting to research or someone ready to make a purchase decision.

The ability to use first-party data also keeps us from undercutting display. The advertiser can be specific about who they are targeting. So, we build value back into the chain programmatically. At the end of the day, it is a very specific way of doing advertising. If there is value, we’ll maintain our CPMs because, with programmatic, there’s not a lot of places to hide.

Q: What types of marketing initiatives lend themselves best to leveraging programmatic, and what advice would you give publishers weighing programmatic pros and cons?

A:We’ve done a ton of direct response in premium programmatic. It goes back to the very specific audience, a very specific individual or group—those are the ones that work best. We don’t see it used much for general branding campaigns.

The value of programmatic always comes back to reaching a very specific profile at scale. Marketers are looking for efficiencies and results. One of the great things about programmatic is that you know almost instantly how something is performing and, as a publisher, you have a lot of flexibility to adjust the audience you are targeting.

I realize there’s still some hesitation on the part of publishers to incorporate programmatic into the mix but I would encourage them to continue to test it and to evaluate pricing models as well. The biggest fear among publishers is that programmatic is going to devalue pricing. Do some testing around performance. You can build a lot of value back into the pool with data mining.

Keep in mind that programmatic can dramatically expand the audience you offer your advertisers, and it can put you back in control because you can be the arbiter of what is good on the web.

Peter Longo is the CEO of IDG TechNetwork Chief Digital Officer of IDG Communications. Longo, who joined IDG six years ago, has built IDG TechNetwork into the leading tech vertical ad network and exchange and has defined and led IDG’s data-driven strategy. In 2013, Longo assumed added responsibilities as IDG’s first Chief Digital Officer. In that role, Longo oversees all digital operations in IDG’s U.S. media subsidiary, IDG Communications, including ad operations, development of creative systems and functionality, demand generation, branding, video, and mobile. Longo brought to IDG a 20 year career in media sales and senior management. He began his career at CMP Media but in 1991 moved to Ziff Davis Media where he held several executive positions. Longo rose from associate publisher to publisher, group publisher, and executive vice president with titles such as PC Magazine, PC Week/eWeek, and Computer Shopper. In 2003, he joined Zinio, first as executive vice president and then rose to president at the digital magazine provider.

Note: This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights.

Also in this series:

Q&A with Neil Johnston, Cox’s EVP of Strategy & Digital Innovation on Premium Programmatic

Q&A with Chip Schenck, VP/Programmatic Sales & Strategy, Meredith on Premium Programmatic

Q&A With Jeff Misenti, Chief Digital Officer, Fox News on Cross-Platform Advertising

Revenue

Q&A with Chip Schenck, VP/Programmatic Sales & Strategy, Meredith on Premium Programmatic

March 3, 2014 Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN

This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights… If you want to learn more, keep an eye out on our site for more interviews. Today’s Three on Three interview is with Chip Schenck, VP/Programmatic Sales & Strategy, Meredith on the subject of “Premium Programmatic” advertising.

Q: How would you define Premium Programmatic as it compares to what we’ve come to know as “Programmatic Advertising”?

A:Premium Programmatic is a combination of both a change in sales process/dialogue and packaging of inventory, vs what we have seen previously as standard programmatic. Standard programmatic can be defined as machine to machine buying/selling automation. Where previously, standard programmatic inventory had various shades of transparency with little differentiation in available inventory and no real human interaction—what we call “dials only”—as part of the selling and transaction process, programmatic premium is typically direct sold, human negotiated, uniquely packaged and made up of limited availability inventory, with much greater levels of transparency between buyer and seller.

The simple answer? Programmatic premium is directly sold/personally negotiated but programmatically executed. For buyers, the opportunity is higher value inventory, depending on how you define “higher value.” This might mean earlier look, higher in the frequency curve, specific inventory, audience enriched, etc. It could mean a better environment versus the open exchange, better brand performance, etc.

Q: Describe the way in which your organization handles programmatic?

A: We are approaching the market with a unified sales vision, and a focus on leveraging data in all of our sales channels: Ideally, programmatic and sponsorship dollars working together to support a creative idea will drive better consumer engagement for a client’s campaign, and so we want our sales efforts to be unified where possible. However, not everyone is buying that way, and so will also be able to service parallel paths—sponsorship only and programmatic only—until such time as planning/buying is more holistic.

When more than half of the Advertising Trading Desks s in the market have built a ‘transition’ or ‘liaison’ team between the traditional digital agency and the programmatic agency/ATD to bet better aligned, that is a signal that buying methodologies will change. We look at this as a positive trend for the industry because it moves the conversation towards total value for the client and the publisher, and understanding how each channel can benefit a client’s plan, rather than a focus on price sensitivity or efficiency alone.

Q: What types of marketing initiatives lend themselves best to leveraging programmatic and how can the premium approach better deliver?

A:Programmatic has been used to deliver a lot of direct response campaigns in the past because it was so price driven. However, leveraging the incredible targeting capabilities, the transparency of placement, contextual adjacency when desired, the halo effect from a strong consumer media brand, and the benefits of efficient media, any form of communication can work programmatically. It can successfully drive KPI’s including awareness and reach for the upper funnel; inspiration and intention for the mid funnel; and trial and transaction for the lower funnel. Premium programmatic offers the best mix of pricing efficiency, targeting, reach and scale, while still getting the safety and engagement of trusted contextual environments.

Charles “Chip” Schenck is the VP of Programmatic Sales and Strategy at Meredith Corporation and responsible for helping clients leverage data and insights across Meredith’s Digital Network, for execution across all platforms and channels. Schenck joined Meredith Digital from PubMatic where he served as VP/Publisher Development. In addition, Schenck has held senior leadership positions with a diverse range of media companies including serving as VP/Integrated Sales & Development for American Express Publishing; Associate Publisher for In Touch Weekly; and Managing Director of Sales and Marketing for Hearst-Stratosfera.

Note: This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights.

Also in this series:

Q&A with Neil Johnston, Cox’s EVP of Strategy & Digital Innovation on Premium Programmatic

Perspectives | Revenue

Q&A with Neil Johnston, Cox’s EVP of Strategy & Digital Innovation on Premium Programmatic

February 25, 2014 Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN

This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights… If you want to learn more, keep an eye out on our site for more interviews. Today’s Three on Three is with Neil Johnston, Cox Media Group’s Executive VP of Strategy & Digital Innovation on Premium Programmatic.

Q: How would you define Premium Programmatic as it compares to what we’ve come to know as “Programmatic Advertising”?

A: The value proposition of programmatic advertising is the efficiency and scale that automated buying confers. Premium programmatic retains these values, while adding in the safety and fidelity of guaranteed site-direct buying. Technologically speaking, this means bypassing an RTB exchange in favor of exposing and booking a subset of inventory directly against a publisher’s primary ad server.

This has advantages for both demand side buyers and supply side publishers. Buyers are able to selectively access quality, site-specific, high impact inventory in a highly efficient way, while publishers are able to increase yield by accessing the high demand programmatic sales channel in a transparent and optimized way.

Despite the moniker, “Premium” does not necessarily mean better – it’s simply another buying tool that suits certain campaigns more than others. The name is more a reflection of the relative scarcity of this guaranteed inventory compared to the rest of programmatic space, as well as the higher prices that come with that. Premium may be better suited to certain branding campaigns, for example, while RTB might be better leveraged by performance campaigns run through DSPs that can optimize against its scale in real-time.

Q: Describe the way in which your organization handles programmatic?

A: Our CMG properties leverage the technology of our subsidiary, Cox Digital Solutions (CDS), on the programmatic supply-side to excellent results. Some of our sites seek to maximize yield, others maximize fill, and still others are most concerned about protecting CPMs and direct sales channels. CDS’ proprietary dynamic floor optimization technology lets us optimize demand tailored to our properties specific needs.
On the sell-side, our inventory has been included in private exchange deals facilitated by CDS through our partners at Casale Media to buyers such as MediaMath. We are currently exploring our options to expose guaranteed inventory programmatically.

Q: What types of marketing initiatives lend themselves best to leveraging programmatic and how can the premium approach better deliver?

A: Practically any campaign, shy of a truly integrated/native one, can benefit from the advantages of programmatic. While there is currently a bias towards premium for branding and RTB for performance, the lines are blurring, as scale and measurement improve optimization in the premium space, and transparency and viewability improve brand safety in the RTB space.

My advice here is simply that while programmatic will evolve, it’s here to stay. So get educated. And, more than anything, get started.

Neil Johnston is Cox Media Group’s (CMG) Executive Vice President, Strategy and Digital Innovation at the company’s headquarters in Atlanta where he oversees Strategic Development, CMG Digital and the company’s growing portfolio of digital investments. Johnston previously served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Cox Media Group. He also was Cox Radio’s Chief Financial Officer from September 2000 until it was made private in 2009.

For premium access to Cox Media Group inventory, please contact Andy Levi at Cox Digital Solution (alevi@coxds.com).

Note: This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights.

Innovation | Revenue

Free to Innovate: Experimentation in Fee-based Media Models

February 20, 2014 Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN

For a time, free looked like the only option for the media business. The model seemed to be a veritable free-for-all. Because, despite digital content consumers’ insatiable appetite, models that made this all-you-can-eat buffet profitable—or at least as profitable as offline legacy models—remained elusive. The upside of the rise of free was that market pressure caused many media businesses to experiment with monetization methods and, in many cases, they have diversified their revenue streams, strategies, and organizational structure which makes them more resilient in the long term.

Yet contrary to the seemingly overwhelming tide of free, many media organizations sustain subscription-based models. In fact, according to research conducted late last year, 95% of OPA members have an ongoing subscription based strategy. And these strategies are far from stagnant.

Subscription Model Starting Point
While its longstanding subscription business makes it one of the industry’s paid content poster children, the Financial Times continuously pursues the development of new offerings that maintain customer affinity and feed the bottom line. When considering a new premium offering, FT.com managing director Rob Grimshaw suggests that you first focus on “what is unique or different about your product. Then he says, “take advantage of the flexibility that the web environment offers. You don’t have to put up a gigantic blank door on the site that says ‘pay to enter.’ The web offers many ways to do these things: You can build sampling in, you can use freemium models.”

Though Michael Crosby, COO of The Deal says that a subscription based initiative “is no different than any business idea,” he suggests examining the market and look for a problem that exists. Then ask “Can we provide insight or analysis the fills that gap?”

Sarah McConville, Harvard Business Review Group VP and HBR Press publisher, also approaches the development of subscription offerings from distinct value propositions. However she says “we always start with audience. For whom are we developing this? What job are they hiring Harvard Business Review to do?”

Innovation and Experimentation
As Grimshaw points out, digital media provide an opportunity for a great deal of flexibility and experimentation with pricing, offerings and customer experience. At FT.com, they not only view subscription models as a revenue stream, they are a means to better understand, serve and retain customers. “Subscriptions create a direct relationship with your audience,” he says. “You learn so much about them including demographics, onsite behavior and other information that can be very powerful from a marketing and advertising point of view.”

One insight that he has put to work for FT.com was that “engagement is absolutely critical to the success of subscription models.” This engagement imperative was a driving force between the company’s Fast FT product, which provides a continuous stream of “intelligent first-response to the news.” While the creation of a near-real time news culture marked a shift for the FT, Grimshaw says it has paid off with those visiting Fast FT spending ten or more minutes on the site.

HBR has also made a significant change in approach over the past year by offering “All Access” as its primary offer to subscribers. Readers can access their Harvard Business Review subscription in print, online, and via your iPad, and access to the current issue as well as the online archive of 50+ years of HBR articles. McConville says “we were really pleased to see that, in a time when many media brands are cutting subscription price and offering more content for free as a way of maintaining circulation levels, with “All Access” we’ve been able to add more subscribers, and increase the price with this subscription. Harvard Business Review’s 1H13 AAM Publisher’s Statement was the highest paid circulation level in HBR’s history at 260K. “

At The Deal, Crosby says they focus on helping readers come up with “ideas for their next deal through our editorial insight.” Realizing that these readers will then want to figure out how they might have a connection with someone who will help them make that next deal, The Deal launched a subscription offering called “Connections” that does just that.

Subscription Success Strategy
To create a content product that pays, Crosby says you must have an “obsessive focus on the user experience” Understanding how it fits in with their daily workflow is the starting point that will ensure that a user “needs to have your service.”

One piece of advice McConville says it is essential to align the editorial and commercial stakeholders in a shared understanding of how offerings serve subscribers. However she also suggests “bringing in the skeptics, listen and take them seriously.”

Grimshaw agrees that much can be learned from peers and your own team. However, he suggests that one of the best ways to foster innovation in subscription content offerings is to “look outside of the boundaries of the publishing industry.” He suggests looking at the retail industry, gaming, and others pioneering the space to find inspiration for the next generation of subscription innovation.

You Might Also be Interested In:

Q&A with Rob Grimshaw, Managing Director, FT.com on Subscription Model Success

Q&A with Michael Crosby, Chief Operating Officer, The Deal on Subscription Model Success

Q&A with Sarah McConville, VP of Marketing, HBR & Publisher HBR Press on Subscription Models

Revenue

Glamour’s Hot New Look at Shopping: The Shop Glamour Ecommerce Experience

February 13, 2014 Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN

At 75, Glamour is not afraid to experiment to maintain its youthful appeal and please its digitally-savvy readership. The Condé Nast publication has introduced ecommerce initiatives in the past, including Shop Style, which used the affiliate model, and SnapTags, a social/mobile experience. This week it debuted its most holistic ecommerce effort yet Shop Glamour, which allows readers to buy items, pay through one shopping cart, and receive their haul in a Glamour-branded box, even if the items are from multiple brands. In developing Shop Glamour, Glamour partnered with AHAlife for the e-commerce technology and fulfillment capabilities as well as the development of a mobile app and responsive website.

Executive digital director Mike Hofman points out that “Glamour readers are great experimenters; this is a very fashion-forward magazine and they want to try out the latest styles and trends.” Glamour fans also rely on the brand’s editorial perspective to help them identify those trends and how they can “translate into a woman’s real life.” Shop Glamour, says Hofman, is a natural extension of the relationship the editors have with their readers. The offering includes more than 200 brands curated by Glamour’s editorial team. Hofman says, “Our fashion and beauty teams are thrilled with the project. Seven editors have already curated ‘boutiques’ of their own.”

This, says Hofman, is a natural extension of the editorial process. “We are used to providing fashion and beauty inspiration and providing a curated shopping experience is an extension of that.” And, he points out, “in some ways, editorially-curated is the holy grail of shopping tools.” Maintaining reader trust is an important component of any brand extension so Glamour is maintaining a “strict wall” between what the editors choose and what is promoted by advertisers.

While not every item in the magazine’s editorial and advertising content will be shoppable, every ad in the March issue will be as will many items featured in editorial spreads. At launch, 20 advertisers are participating in Shop Glamour across the app and video, including L’Oréal Paris, Maybelline, Sexy Hair, and LOFT. Other features of the app include additional editorial content and behind-the-scenes celebrity videos.

Shop Glamour includes two components developed with AHAlife: shop.glamour.com, a fully-integrated ecommerce site, and the shopping app, which uses image recognition software to display the shoppable items from the page on a phone. The mobile component is one that Hofman is particularly enthusiastic about. “Your phone is like oxygen now, especially for users in our demo of women 18 to 34.” While he says only a few years ago, he might not have viewed mobile as a “sure thing for commerce” today, it is a given. “Glamour’s online mobile audience is north of 40% of our readers. With that fact, and all of the trends around mobile commerce, the mobile app is a key piece.”

The Glamour audience, says Hofman, “is a contemporary reader who expects to have inspiration, and the ability to act on it, wherever and wherever she wants to—in-book, on her tablet, online, and in stores.” And Glamour is betting that its latest foray into taking the reader off the page to deliver a satisfying content experience will be a hot new shopping trend.

Perspectives | Revenue

Q&A with Sol Masch, Director of Mobile Sales & Strategy, Time Inc. on Mobile Ad Innovation

February 6, 2014 Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN

This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights… If you want to learn more, keep an eye out on our site for more interviews. Today’s Three on Three is with Sol Masch, Director of Mobile Sales & Strategy, Time Inc.

Q: In mobile advertising, what is the most important thing to consider?

A: The place to begin is always around the KPIs and defining those so we can figure out how to make a campaign a success. On mobile, most clients want engagement. The question is, what does engagement mean? Then you can define the right message, the right user and appropriate data targeting. Often, engagement is defined as getting a user to interact. Then you have to create rich messaging that drives interaction. But the message can also be delivered in the form of content that will prompt interaction. We are definitely getting more requests for native and we’re looking at how it lives on the mobile screen and how it will engage readers.

One of the big differentiating factors for mobile versus desktop or other platforms, is the idea of time spent. This is a big misnomer as a KPI on mobile. Agencies often want to drive campaigns based upon how much time people are spending interacting. We don’t find that time spent is the best KPI. If you can engage a user in five seconds—if they go through the entire experience and you get them to want to share the content—you have engaged them, in a matter of seconds.

We see that it is important to be more sensitive to the issue of time on mobile. Often we see that people use mobile during “found time,” which is a couple of minutes on the bus or waiting for an appointment. Mobile demands quick hits that are just as powerful as longer times spent on other devices. The trick is in designing those experiences that last less than a minute, or even just a few seconds, to deliver impact and engagement.

Q: Describe one of your recent or upcoming mobile campaigns that you think is particularly innovative and why it worked.

A: We recently did a campaign with Infiniti promoting the Q50 vehicle. What’s interesting about the Q50 is its intuitive features: You step into the car and it knows all of the personalized features you like such as seat and mirror position.

Given how personalized the Q50 experience is, we wanted to create a similar ad experience that knew the user and that was intuitive about them as well. With our database targeting we are able to identify our print readers through our partnership with Apple and on Facebook and Twitter, et cetera. We developed an experience that gave users not only content from their favorite brands but also content tailored to their specific taste. So if we identified a mobile user as a Time reader who likes technology, the ad unit would contain a bunch of tech articles. A business enthusiast would get business news articles. We tailored this experience so that it leveraged the right brand with the right reader, but also the exact right content.

This campaign was extremely successful. By delivering the right content through the ad experience, we saw engagement levels lifted three to five times.

Q: What is working in mobile advertising, and what do we need more of, in order to drive success?

A: I think that mobile is getting a lot less clunky and more sophisticated, which is a good thing for users and the industry. A few years ago, there was marketer resistance around investing in mobile because experiences on the desktop, with flash and sexy animations, couldn’t be replicated on mobile. Now we are seeing beautiful, rich experiences on mobile that have excited a lot of marketers. These improvements have fueled their interest in investing in mobile and is making it a larger part of their multimedia platform spend.

However, we still need less fragmentation and more simplicity. Mobile is still a challenging landscape to navigate. With different devices and different operating systems, mobile is a much more complex environment to run a rich media experience in and to format them to work properly. All that device and screen variation is holding us back.

Devices and operating systems will keep on coming and we need to simplify it for the marketing and advertising community. We have made progress over the past year. I’ve seen a lot more publishers and agencies adopting IAB Rising Star units, which has been a big help for the mobile advertising industry. The more we can establish standards, the more it will help everyone. Within the structure of standards, we will be able to innovate even more.

Sol Masch, Director of Corporate Mobile Sales & Strategy for Time Inc., is responsible for mobile ad monetization across Time Inc.’s network of 32 million monthly mobile users – including brands such as People, Entertainment Weekly, InStyle, TIME, Sports Illustrated, Real Simple, Health, Travel & Leisure and Food & Wine. Prior to joining Time Inc., Masch served as the Mobile Advertising Director for Viacom Media Networks. In this role, he built Viacom’s mobile business from $0 into a multimillion dollar business. Previously, Masch was co-owner of Not13, a full service mobile marketing agency and content provider dedicated to providing interactive campaigns and services on mobile devices for Elektra Records and Fuse TV.

Note: This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights.

Also in this series:

Q&A with Brian Colbert, Chief Revenue Officer, About.com on Mobile Advertising Innovation

Q&A with Joe D. Weir, VP of Digital, A.H. Belo on Mobile Advertising Innovation

Innovation | Revenue

Q&A with Sarah McConville, VP of Marketing, HBR & Publisher HBR Press on Subscription Models

February 3, 2014 Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN

This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights… If you want to learn more, keep an eye out on our site for more interviews. Today’s Three on Three is with Sarah McConville, the Vice President of Marketing for Harvard Business Review Group and Publisher of Harvard Business Review Press.

Q: When conceiving of a subscription-based model, initiative or product, where should you begin strategically?

A: At Harvard Business Review, we always start with the audience. Whether it’s a strategic initiative, a new product concept or our overall subscription model, we ask the questions: For whom are we developing this? What job are they hiring Harvard Business Review to do? What’s the context in which they will be using this offering? What are we bringing to it that is of distinctive value for the audience? What can we give them that is far and away better than they could get anywhere else?

And, just as importantly, we work to ensure that all parts of our business – editorial, marketing, advertising, product development – are in sync when beginning a new strategic effort or offering.

In the past year we’ve been following the framework of a book we recently published calledPlaying to Win. It’s been an incredibly helpful focusing mechanism at all levels of our business.Playing to Winputs you through the paces of asking: What is our winning aspiration? What does winning, not just competing, look like? Where will we play? Specifically, which segments, which markets, which channels, which products? How will we win? So that we get at what our strategic advantage is in achieving our winning aspiration, what capabilities must be in place? How must we be prepared as an organization and as individuals to achieve our aspiration? And finally, what management systems are required? In other words, how are we going to support our behaviors and track our progress? It’s helped us to align and cascade our efforts from an HBR group-level down to individual units and teams.

Q: Please describe one of your subscription-based initiatives and the way in which you feel it is particularly innovative.

A: In the past year we’ve made a significant change to our subscription model by offering “All Access” as our primary offer to subscribers. “All Access” is just that: You can access your Harvard Business Review subscription in print, online, and via your iPad, and you have access to the current issue as well as our online archive of 50+ years of HBR articles. We made the move to “All Access” after hearing from subscribers that this offer represented a greater value for them than just print or print and website alone. And I have to say that we were really pleased to see that, in a time when many media brands are cutting subscription price and offering more content for free as a way of maintaining circulation levels, with “All Access” we’ve been able to add more subscribers, and increase the price with this subscription. Harvard Business Review’s 1H13 AAM Publisher’s Statement was the highest paid circulation level in HBR’s history at 260K.

Based on the success of “All Access” we’re in the process of engaging with our audience to explore other ways of adding value to a Harvard Business Review subscription at a premium level so that we can build on our success to deliver an even better experience for our readers in the future.

Q: What advice would you give in terms of approaching subscription models creatively? Are there any best practices, processes, tips or resources that you would suggest?

A: I think it’s important to listen closely to your subscribers and to understand their most important needs today, but also have an eye on the future and a sense of how you think you can grow your business. Finding this balance of today and tomorrow is critically important. Engage in ongoing audience research, follow best practices from other media brands, but have a strong point of view about what you think makes your offering unique and what you can capitalize on to deliver more value.

When considering new models or offerings, work hard to align the editorial and commercial stakeholders in a shared understanding of how you’re serving subscribers and what you want to deliver to them. But also bring in the skeptics, listen, take them seriously. They will help you gain a different perspective on what you’re trying to do and push you to think more rigorously about the solution you want to offer and the audience segments and channels in which you want to play.

Work to create value for everyone – subscribers and customers, the editorial team and contributors, advertisers, employees. It’s important that everyone involved is contributing and feels they are being well served by the outcome.

Continually check your assumptions. What is true today is sure to change in the future. Evolving your subscription model is an ongoing practice that requires you to constantly test, try new things, learn from the feedback, refine − and sometimes, take a step in a new direction. Innovation is a dynamic process.

Sarah McConville is the Vice President of Marketing for Harvard Business Review Group and Publisher of Harvard Business Review Press. In her role as Publisher, McConville leads the commercial aspects of Harvard Business Review Press, including strategic partnerships, marketing and communications, licensing, and global sales. With Harvard Business Review Group’s executive team led by Group Publisher Joshua Macht and Editor-in-Chief Adi Ignatius, McConville is helping to shape the transformation of Harvard Business Review into a multi-platform digital media brand.

Note: This Q&A is part of OPA’s “Three on Three” series where we ask three industry executives the same three questions on a topic to uncover actionable insights.

Also in this series:

Q&A with Rob Grimshaw, Managing Director, FT.com on Subscription Model Success

Q&A with Michael Crosby, Chief Operating Officer, The Deal on Subscription Model Success