Month: December 2020

Vox Media’s The Strategist saw its Cyber 5 revenues leap 120% year over year, thanks not only to holiday guides but pieces it refines all year. Indeed, a bigger percentage of that growth was powered by revenue from evergreen articles rather than Black Friday- or Cyber Monday-specific ones, said Camilla Cho, Vox Media’s svp of e-commerce.

Verizon Media Group’s second big run — this is its second Cyber 5 after a major investment in commerce — at the holiday stretch saw its revenues increase 105%, and a nearly 200% increase in gross merchandise volume, head of consumer revenue Joanna Lambert said.

The strong growth was a payoff for work done all year to adapt to extraordinary circumstances. But now, those and other publishers have to figure out how much of what they experienced is a signal about what might happen next year — and what is an anomaly.

While people across the industry have talked about coronavirus as an accelerant which sped media and marketing down paths they were just starting to tread, much of what happened during this year’s Cyber 5 was driven by highly unusual factors.

For example, lots of merchants and retailers began releasing their deals a lot earlier than usual, hoping that getting orders in earlier might help them avoid potential fulfillment problems caused by a crush of online orders.  

(Another thing they hope was an anomaly: The affiliate network Impact went down for almost two hours, causing a wave of panic to roll through many publishers’ commerce war rooms.)

But even with 2021 still a few weeks away, and many unknowns still hanging over the economy, publishers and agencies both teased a few things out of this year’s Cyber 5.

A longer shopping season
A whole host of factors conspired to start the 2020 holiday shopping season a lot earlier, ranging from merchant fulfillment concerns to Amazon holding Prime Day in mid-October.

Whether one of those things was more important or not, “that pull forward from the merchants was real,” said Jessica Spira, vp of partner growth and management at Ziff Media Group.

Spira noted that the data gathered across ZMG’s sites showed their audience shopping decisively. “[Average order value was up], our conversion rate was double what it normally is,” Spira said. “Our lead in [to the Cyber 5] was super strong.”

Media and affiliate budgets will keep coming together — because more publishers are making the case
Historically, brands and retailers have managed their affiliate and media budgets separately. And while publishers have spent years trying to talk advertisers into doing package deals, “it’s a small set of publishers that have begun to crack that nut,” said Natalee Geldert, senior director of brand and media partnerships at PMG.

But this year, Geldert said, “the list of publishers that can do it grew,” and their success could help reorient more people around the wisdom of using their media inventory in innovative ways to drive conversions.

More always-on thinking
While publishers and retailers still rely on shopping tentpole events to drive large amounts of revenue, this year reinforced that publishers need to be able to help keep sales strong all year. That will be especially important over the next six months, as the country waits out the distribution and effect of a coronavirus vaccine.

“Most clients are trying to figure out the moments to win in the everyday,” said Amy Lanzi, commerce practice lead at Publicis. “The things we know to be true from a holiday perspective or how you plan a marketing calendar are broken…We’re not clear on what’s going to happen in Q1 and Q2.”

That focus on evergreen content helps during tentpoles too. Vox Media’s the Strategist drove more Cyber 5 revenue growth from its evergreen articles than it did from its holiday guides.

Faster is better
Typically, the data and reporting lag from affiliate networks makes it hard for publishers to figure out which posts are driving the best results, which makes it difficult to maximize their revenue in real time. But publishers that invested in figuring out other signals did great.

For example, BuzzFeed has identified a range of metrics and indicators that helps it understand which articles to promote on social.

“We’re generally getting better at swarming the internet,” BuzzFeed’s Ali said. “In the past, it was more of a ‘let’s try this and see what happens.’ We now have multiple years of testing tactics at Facebook and Instagram and Apple and our sites and knowing where things work best.”

“We will go from a very small minority of impressions in 2019 that used first-party data compared to third-party data to meaningful growth on that this year, and next year we expect much more than a majority of our impressions across the platform will use first-party data compared to third-party data,” said Ryan Pauley, chief revenue officer at Vox Media, which launched its first-party data platform Forte in December 2019.

Meanwhile, SHE Media plans to include first-party data options in the majority of its pitch request responses in 2021, said Ryan Nathanson, svp of operations at SHE Media. “In 2020, [first-party data options were] included when a strategic advertiser was asking for it or looking for it, but now it’s going to be much more proactive and default,” he said.

The third-party cookie’s impending demise is one catalyst pushing publishers to prioritize their first-party data in programmatic ad sales, but advertiser demand has accelerated that push in 2020. Not only are advertisers more frequently asking about deal options involving publishers’ first-party data, but publishers are finding the deals employing those options are likely to be more lucrative. 

The unnamed publisher said that advertisers signing private marketplace deals including first-party data as an option spend more than twice as much money than PMP deals that don’t include the data.

The publisher attributed the difference to the advertiser being more invested in the deal and therefore likely to spend if it expressed enough interest to be briefed on and select the first-party data option. By contrast, an advertiser or agency can set up a standard PMP and just as easily leave it dormant and not funnel any money through it. “The hit rate on those [deals not involving first-party data] is way lower. When we establish that relationship with an advertiser and activate those [first-party data] deals, we have generally seen the spend come through,” the publisher said.

In light of that, this publisher has incentivized its sales team to strike deals involving first-party data. If a seller is able to secure a deal in which the advertiser spends a certain amount of money — in the tens of thousands of dollars — buying ads using the publisher’s first-party data, the seller receives a bonus, according to the publisher.

SHE Media, which works with data management platform provider Permutive, has seen its first-party data boost not only PMP deals but also direct deals. “We see an increase in [insertion order] size, in general, when we get the opportunity to walk through our first-party data strategy,” said Nathanson, noting the increase is around 20%.

However, publishers cannot simply utter the words “first-party data” and expect advertisers to widen their wallets. The increased importance of first-party data has coincided with heightened interest among ad buyers in how that data is collected and managed. “There’s more scrutiny for sure in recent years, especially around data sourcing practices as well as from an ethics perspective. That’s probably a two-year increasing trend,” said an agency executive. A newer aspect of that trend is that ad buyers are not only trying to understand the integrity of individual publishers’ data but also how consistent it is with other publishers, Pauley said.

Corresponding to the increased interest in publishers’ first-party data, publishers are taking more steps to build out their data sets. SHE Media plans to conduct more audience research on advertisers’ behalf, such as running polls and surveys on its sites, and connect those results to its first-party audience segments, Nathanson said. 

And Vox Media is working to take more contextual data, such as how someone arrived at page on its sites, into account, Pauley said. For example, if a person visits The Verge from a Google search for a tech product, Vox Media would be able to use that as a signal when deciding which piece of ad creative to serve them. “That’s where we’ll continue to invest a lot of time and energy — understanding all those elements of context: what’s on the page, where did the user come from, what is the ad creative, what time of day it is, where are they based,” he said.

The Marvel-themed fourth season of the game concluded last week when Fortnite players were pitted against the planet-sized supervillain Galactus. It unraveled like a bombastic scene from a Marvel movie where players were sent hurtling from an aircraft at one moment, teaming up with superheroes like Iron Man at other moments in the lead up to piloting a bus armed with explosives into Galactus before he destroyed the world.

For the duration of the event, Fortnite made the wildly impossible, possible for fans. And there were lots of them. A record 15.3 million concurrent players took part in the event, while more than 3.4 million watched it all unfold on YouTube and Twitch according to Fortnite’s creators. For context, the final episode of the final season of Game of Thrones was watched by 13.6 million viewers live on the HBO channel.  

Fortnite’s lofty numbers reveal a key point. It isn’t a video game so much as it is a destination with a myriad of entertainment experiences and social interactions available, depending on what someone feels like doing, and who they’re hanging out with. Yes, there are gamers who only play, but there are others also watching people play, influencing those matches and talking about doing so while streaming to hundreds of thousands of people. 

“Fortnite is a premiere example of a platform that is prioritizing the right aspects of its business and monetizing well, making sure everything ties back to providing better experiences for its users,” Sacha Lazimi, CEO of social networking app Yubo.

Disney does this well too. In Disney World, It has created a ‘world’ within the real world where play, fantasy and magic all feel like they come alive for the people that step through those gates. While it’s important for entertainment businesses to own great content, audience engagement is also very crucial.

“We often talk about commissioners, who decide what content gets to audiences. Fortnite, Roblox — the audience is the commissioner,” said Peter Robinson, chief strategy officer at marketing and research firm KidsKnowBest. “You have ‘Battle Royale’ for play, ‘Party Island’ for social and festivals, ‘Creative Mode’ for user-generated content, which has a monetization model aligned, and passive experiences in just viewing the battles. You make the movie, star in the movie and you get paid to watch the movie.”

Big picture, big fan communities are driving conversation around games like Fortnite, with influencers and creators leading the dialogue. And much like Disney’s fan base, there is a huge, multi-generational community of adult and adolescent fans who all contribute to the popularity of these video games.

‘Fortnite went beyond gaming and advertising to leverage its game, characters, skins and other factors to build an IP that can expand into multiple business opportunities,” said Andre Artacho, managing director at media consultancy Two Nil.

Roblox CEO and president David Baszuck highlighted this vision last month when he outlined the plan for growth after the company announced its plan to become publicly listed. In the document, Baszuck said:  “Today, Roblox provides shared online experiences where people can interact in 3D simulated virtual environments, sometimes referred to as a metaverse.”

The more the likes of Fortnite and Roblox do to develop their virtual worlds with experiences, interactions and places to discover outside the core gameplay, the more that marketers will feel like they can and should find a home within it too. 

“That’s not to say people treat these game spaces as worlds because they spend so much time in them, that’s not the point,” said Kate Lynham, creative director at production studio UNIT9. “The point is that it feels like a space with the variety and flexibility of the real world, and can therefore support multiple experiences.”

Lynham saw this dynamic up close in September when UNIT9 created a virtual concert featuring Candadian singer Ruth B in Minecraft for the Ad Council’s She Can STEM campaign. Rather than replicate a live stream of the singer on YouTube, Lynham’s took advantage of the interactivity afforded by the game. There were merchandise drops two hours before the performance across three different virtual environments that were also packed with Easter Eggs for fans. And when they did arrive, there were no seats or fanzones for them to head to. Instead they were asked to follow Ruth B as she moved between the stages during the 10-song set. 

“We were freed from the restrictions of gravity and crowd control in a virtual space, so we could be more playful,” said Lynham.

While advertising in video games has existed for some time, gamers are notoriously sensitive to marketing that isn’t authentic. Take Ninja’s live stream of the Fallout 76  game with adult cartoon characters Rick and Morty, for example. Viewers complained that the characters were ms-matched with Ninja and blasted him for fronting such an obvious brand partnership. Where Fortnite has succeeded more often than not is in neatly integrating brands into the game’s setting. 

“These brand partnerships provide what Fortnite’s player base considers a true value: the opportunity to play as an iconic character they want to play as without feeling like they are being advertised to,” said Cameron Partridge, svp of client services and strategies at product placement and influencer agency BEN. ”While brand partnerships can add to a player’s experience, there must be a natural alignment between the game and the brand itself, or you can face potential backlash.”

The careful way movies like John Wick or toy brands like Nerf are turned into in-game characters and weapons not only makes those entertainment properties more visible, but essentially creates a shared ecosystem between those brands and Fortnite. Again, there are parallels between this approach and what Disney has done. Every movie tie-in within the parks, themed snack or ride, or piece of branded merch helps further build an all-encompassing world for guests. And because each of those elements aligns with the broader themes of the park, visitors don’t feel like they’re being advertised to, but rather they’re immersed in their favorite Disney movies and shows.

“Netflix, Disney and many others see Fortnite as a threat because they all compete for attention,” said Visar Statovci, managing partner at independent digital creative agency Waste. “It’s looking increasingly likely that non-gaming entertainment and media companies will need to at least have an understanding of that world and carve a meaningful place within it, or even become part of it through acquisition.”

While advertiser interest in retail media has been growing in recent years — access to retailers’ first-party data has become more and more appealing as the third-party cookie crumbles — that growth has accelerated due to the pandemic. As previously reported by Digiday, advertisers in categories like electronics, personal care, clothing and pharmaceuticals joined consumer packaged goods brands in moving more ad dollars to Walmart, Target, Instacart and Amazon this spring. 

As retailers like Walgreens, CVS and Home Depot, among others, roll out new retail media networks they are playing catch up to Amazon, Walmart and Target, according to ad buyers, who say that as retail media has continued to grow it has not only become a more crowded sector — but also harder to differentiate between the retailers’ offerings. 

“Walgreens is subscribing to the new retail media playbook that’s been developed in 2020,” said Alex Barnes, media director at independent creative and strategic agency The Many, adding that like other retail media offerings much of  Walgreens’ pitch boasts access to “rich, deterministic first-party data” as third-party cookies are going away. “I have a hard time understanding what sets them apart [from other retail media networks]. The same goes for CVS.” 

Typically retail media networks pitch advertisers on access to first-party data (usually through a loyalty program) as well as the ability to close the loop on measurement and attribution if an ad converted to a sale. Aside from ads on the retailers’ digital properties, there’s also usually the ability to advertise in the retailers’ email or on its social channels. That the newer retail media networks’ offerings are so similar, it can be difficult for advertisers to figure out which retail media network to prioritize.

“How do you decide how much money to give to Walgreens or CVS [or the other retail media networks]?” said Elizabeth Marsten, senior director of marketplace strategic services at marketing agency Tinuti. “Everyone is asking brands for money. Who gets it and how much? In the end, how do I look at it all? That’s the question brands are asking. Nobody knows the answer right now. Whoever sells it first is the winner.”  

As retail media has become more crowded, the business-to-business marketing from retailers pitching advertisers on retail media networks has become more aggressive and that’s “increased client inquiries” for those networks, noted Barnes. At the same time, the brands interested in retail media have expanded beyond the CPG bread and butter as the “pool of brands that can’t ignore retail media is rapidly circling out further and further.” 

Buyers say that going into 2021, figuring out which retail media networks to prioritize and where to spend will be key for advertisers as with the retail media growth overlap is likely to happen. For example, a CPG brand might be advertising on a retailer’s media network as well as Instacart (as that retailer offers delivery via Instacart) and may be spending ad dollars on both to reach the same customer.

“Budget conflict will be an issue next year; there are more retailers asking for money than advertisers have budgeted for,” said Marsten. “There are more questions than answers right now as we move into Q1 of 2021, especially not knowing what the store footprint looks like.” 

That said, it’s still early days for retail media. “We’re in the growing, expansionary phase,” said Frank Kochenash, president of marketplace services at Wunderman Thompson Commerce. “As the retail media networks mature, the performance will guide what happens next in who wins and who consolidates.”

For journalists reporting on the crisis, or producing editorial products from their sofas, kitchens, and bedrooms, the last nine months have been an unrelenting slog. But the toll taken on the mental health of editorial staff isn’t front and center enough, according to media experts and seasoned journalists spoken to for this article. 

For many, that’s resulted in varying levels of burnout, overwhelming anxiety, depression, insomnia and loneliness. “Journalists felt they were trapped in a pandemic bubble, covering this unremittingly depressing story 12 hours a day,” said John Crowley, a freelance editor and media consultant with long experience of running newsrooms, and who himself suffered burnout earlier this year.

Along with the stress of juggling family and childcare commitments alongside remote-working challenges that have hit all industries as a result of the pandemic, editorial staff in the field have had the additional concern of contracting the virus and bringing it home to their families, according to Kristin Neubauer, TV producer for Reuters and global coordinator and peer supporter for the Reuters Peer Network — a program in which peers are trained by clinicians in active listening, empathy, self-care techniques and when to refer someone to a professional. “Reuters has been diligent about providing and updating safety equipment and protocols, but even with all that support, the worry causes much anxiety,” said Neubauer.

In April, Crowley surveyed 130 journalists from a range of media companies globally and published the results in a report in November. In the report, 64% of respondents said they hadn’t had any positive work experiences during lockdowns, and 77% said that they had experienced work-related stress. A total 59% said they had experienced moments of feeling depressed or anxious. When asked about their work-from-home conditions, 87% said they felt their employer should be responsible, or somewhat responsible, for their conditions of work.

Crowley spoke with journalists from a range of publications in the U.K., Australia, Nigeria, South Africa and Indonesia, in which they revealed that in the scramble to transition to running news outlets from individuals’ homes at the onset of the pandemic in March, their mental wellbeing became an after-thought. “People were being overwhelmed,” added Crowley. “It’s all set against the challenge of the search for a business model, people being asked to do more work, others being made redundant. When the first lockdown came, that was all accentuated with people falling ill. It’s raw, there’s a silent [burnout] epidemic going on and newsroom leaders either don’t know — or don’t care.” 

Enforced cost-cutting caused by the pandemic has meant publishing executives have been informed of job losses over video calls rather than in person. National and regional news publisher Reach was among them when it was forced to cut 550 staff — 325 of which were across editorial and circulation — in the summer in order to deliver £35 million ($47 million) worth of cost savings, after revenues were hit by the coronavirus.

“We had to have a lot of conversations with people about their futures, a lot of Union consultations. We couldn’t do any of it face to face. That was a very stressful time in the company,” said Alison Gow, audience and content editor of North West Reach and president of the Society of Editors.  

Making space to have conversations with managers and editorial staff that isn’t just about hitting numbers and targets is crucial, she added. “If you’re a news editor you have the stresses of dealing with content, managing a team, having a rota, people having to isolate, and you have to be aware of how people are feeling with their mental health and whether you’re providing enough support — it can bring another layer of strain for the manager,” said Gow. 

Working remotely has made communication and basic human interaction with sources more difficult for editorial teams, and not everyone has had the luxury of a spacious home environment. “It is often our more junior members of staff who share houses or live in smaller flats where the fundamental physical challenge of safely working from home is more acute,” said Jon Birchall, sport audience and content director at Reach. “That has to be front of mind for everyone looking at how the new normal can work.”

Many media organizations have made concerted efforts to address the additional strain for journalists. Reuters has its Peer Network and CiC global trauma support and counselling service, the latter includes a 24/7 confidential hotline that its journalists can access professional help from anywhere in multiple languages.

Politico, Bloomberg Media, Axios, as well as The Guardian have all added new benefits like additional PTO, company holidays and training that focuses on mental health, for their entire workforce. The BBC also has a 24/7 employee assistance program and mental health first aiders. Since the pandemic it has promoted these services more to staff, and holds mental health and resilience sessions on Zoom along with workshops on remote working, according to the broadcaster.

However, there are many who believe the cultures of some legacy newsrooms remain closed to the open discussion around the mental health of their staff, and that many newsroom leaders aren’t known for their empathetic people-managing skills but rather more for their ability to soak up an inordinate amount of pressure.

Shirish Kulkarni, a seasoned journalist with 25 years’ experience working in all the U.K.’s major broadcast newsrooms, who himself has suffered from depression and anxiety, said there is still too much lip service when it comes to addressing mental health issues in newsrooms. 

“Newsrooms have a playbook for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in cameramen and women and war reporters,” said Kulkarni. “If someone gets PTSD in a warzone, they know exactly what to do, there is a step-by-step guide. But no-one understands mental health in newsrooms. There isn’t a playbook for the much more common, day-to-day issues like depression, anxiety, eating disorders, which many of their staff are dealing with but no managers know how to deal with,” he added. 

Those with mental health issues often don’t feel they can speak out about it openly at work for fear of it being regarded as a weakness that will impinge their career, according to Hannah Storm, CEO of The Ethical Journalism Network. “We find ourselves defaulting to an excuse because our media industry is not able to accept that mental illness is not a valid reason for missing work,” she said. “There is a huge amount of shame attached to mental illness [in newsrooms].” 

Often it’s those who are traditionally more marginalized as a result of their gender, sexual identity, ethnicity, race or a disability, who are generally most vulnerable to mental distress because of the nature of the conditions of their life or demographic, according to Storm. The same goes for interns or freelancers who don’t have support systems. “If you don’t feel yourself represented in the newsroom you feel less able to represent yourself and worry about speaking about your experiences and whether that will impact your career and how you’re regarded in the newsroom,” she added.

Most agree that culture is starting, albeit slowly, to change. “With ongoing diligence, outreach and discussion, I am hopeful that the news industry will continue to open up to mental health and come to understand that the highest quality journalism comes from journalists who are centered, balanced and supported,” said Reuters’ Neubauer.