Month: October 2022

The rigidity of media companies’ return-to-office policies range from encouragement to straight-up mandates. But across the board, employees and union members Digiday spoke with at Dotdash Meredith, Hearst, NBC News, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal said they have not heard of anyone who has had to deal with disciplinary actions for continuing to work from home. (Notably, all of these newsrooms are unionized.)

“Not yet, anyway,” Tim Martell, executive director of Dow Jones’ union IAPE, said in an email.

The lack of enforcement from Dow Jones management thus far, however, could be because many of the other business units at the publisher’s parent company are either beginning their return to office or starting next month, Martell added.

There has been some flexibility, too, for those who have asked for it: Some IAPE members at The Wall Street Journal have requested and been granted temporary exceptions to the requirement to work from the office, Martell said. Others have the option to negotiate a delayed return because they relocated during the pandemic. A Dow Jones spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment before publishing time.

A Dotdash Meredith employee and union member who asked to remain anonymous said the union’s pushback against return-to-office expectations may be “a deterrent” to any action against employees who are choosing to continue to work from home. The union has outstanding Unfair Labor Practice filings with the National Labor Relations Board against the company for a return-to-office policy that the union claims wasn’t agreed upon. The employee also said management might simply be unaware that there are some employees not going into the office regularly. A company spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment before publishing time.

Unions at The New York Times made their grievances known earlier this month: More than 1,000 member employees signed a pledge refusing to go into the office the week of Sept. 12, defying the company’s requests for staff to start coming in three times a week. A member of the union said they had not heard of any repercussions or disciplinary actions against members who stayed home that week, or since then. A Times spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment before publishing time.

An NBC News spokesperson confirmed that “no NBC News Guild employee has faced any form of termination because of their geographic location.” The company is in “active discussions with the Guild over a safe and flexible return-to-office policy,” they added.

The lack of enforcement of these policies is likely due in part to unions’ pushback, as well as the way that many companies are continuing to handle the return to office: leaving it up to managers. This team-led approach gives leaders the flexibility to determine what hybrid schedule works best for the people they oversee, but also leads to discrepancies among expectations from different teams’ bosses. 

Bhushan Sethi, joint global people and organization leader at consulting firm PwC, said the vagueness of companies’ language around return-to-office plans is likely because they are “fearful of reputation damage” that can be spread on social media, and from unions and employees. “They don’t want to be seen to be too harsh,” he said. “Firms are still walking around on eggshells on this topic.”

Sethi said he’s seen the language in companies’ return-to-office requests progress from “we would like” to “we encourage” to “we would appreciate” to, now, “strongly encourage.”

“Firms are being super accommodating, because they don’t want to lose talent,” he said, citing the current competitive job market. “We’re not seeing any kinds of massive implications” for employees not abiding by companies’ return-to-office requests, Sethi added.

However, it remains to be seen how ignoring companies’ demands might impact employees’ performance reviews and compensation down the line. For example, the people who aren’t going into the office regularly might “advance less quickly,” Sethi said. Employees, he argued, need transparency from their managers on how working from home may impact their ability to advance in the company, he said.

Through the partnership, a new membership bundle will offer a full set of Digiday+ benefits to subscribers in addition to unlimited access to Marketecture’s growing library of expert-led content covering ad tech, mobile marketing, TV/CTV and other marketing tools, along with new vendor interviews scheduled to launch twice weekly. 

“Partnering with Marketecture was an easy choice for Digiday. The synergy here is undeniable, and the move closely aligns with our mission and commitment to our readers to create real transparency in media and advertising and the ever-evolving role that technology plays within it,” said Nick Friese, Digiday Media CEO & Founder. “We’re taking a highly complex ad tech industry and breaking it down into easy, digestible content that our readers can trust and understand, and ultimately, take with them as they make critical business decisions and determine budget allocations throughout the year.”

The Marketecture team is led by CEO and Co-founder Ari Paparo and Editor-in-Chief and Co-founder Zach Rodgers, two industry leaders with decades of experience practicing and covering advertising technology. Their goal is to help buyers learn about technology through interviews hosted by industry experts that will untangle the details and get down to the bottom of a vendor’s pitch. 

“Choosing the right vendor can be extremely challenging, and there is a lack of unbiased and clear information and research readily available,” said Paparo. “Unfortunately, most vendor review sites are pay-to-play, resulting in biased views and predetermined pros and cons of the featured companies. Marketecture solves this core challenge by covering a wide variety of vendors across emerging sectors, providing agencies and advertisers with key insights they will not find anywhere else.”

Friese added, “At Digiday, we’re proud to help our readers navigate this incredible but complicated industry. When they log in or open our newsletter, they’ve come to expect a high level of expertise and clarity on the latest news and trends in media.  I couldn’t be more excited to continue to provide the Digiday audience with a best-in-class experience and even more access to the inner workings of the ad tech world.”

Interviews from Marketecture, which was launched this year, include vendors like Comscore, NBC Universal’s One Platform, LiveIntent, Innovid, and LiveRamp, as well as smaller, emerging vendors like Habu and Rockerbox. The new Digiday+ bundle including Marketecture content is available for purchase now.

Readers can also expect to see more from this partnership on digiday.com and through event activations in the near future.

A new campaign — which is rolling out this week in Berlin, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. — includes digital billboards and Spotify ads that aim to capitalize on unpredictable commuting moments. The goal: To reach people in the very places where their cars and trains might fail them — or where they can avoid traffic, delays and parking.

“There’s plenty of things that Lime could be the antidote for in these cities,” said Christian Navarro, Lime’s head of brand marketing. “Whether it’s trying to find parking in Adams Morgan in D.C. or sitting in traffic on the Embarcadero in San Francisco, we know that there was a reason for Lime to exist to make people’s lives better in those cities.”

That’s not to say sustainability isn’t at play in this campaign. (A new ad in San Francisco mentions “climate anxiety.) The company also had a “Break Up With Cars” campaign in April that offered people rewards if they pledged to ditch their gas guzzler for a certain period of time. Lime did not say how many took the pledge. Meanwhile, some reports have noted that higher fuel prices have prompted people to make the switch to scooters.

The latest campaign also comes as Lime looks to expand on a number of fronts. Along with raising $523 million last year as part of its IPO efforts, Lime also added a new electric moped offering in certain cities, which were briefly available in New York before they were pulled off the streets earlier this year.

This isn’t the first time Lime has focused on local marketing. In 2019, the company worked with ad agencies in various cities to create local ads. However, it’s also faced regulatory setbacks in some, such as in St. Paul, which recently allowed scooters to return to the city’s streets while still banning bikes. (Lime also recently suspended operation in South Korea due to regulatory issues and other concerns.)

Beyond Lime’s consumer marketing, the company is also marketing to policymakers in various cities with targeted campaigns focused on issues like safety and parking.

Lime didn’t disclose its ad spending, but so far this year competitors have spent contrasting amounts. Although the ad-tracker Pathmatics didn’t have spending data for Lime, it said Bird Rides has spent $668,000 so far this year, up from $369,000 in 2021. Meanwhile, Lyft has spent just $16,800 marketing Citibike but spent $19,400 last year.

Navarro didn’t say which ad channel has performed best, but that acquisition on paid social as a category has been “wild.” To recruit new riders, Lime has been giving new riders offers for when they sign up. However, Navarro said the top-line goal of the campaign is to improve brand awareness; he did not say how many have signed up as of late.

Navarro — who joined Lime in May — previously worked on marketing teams at Soul Cycle and Spotify, where he spent time working on the streaming service’s annual Spotify Wrapped playlist. He said context matters when it comes to helping people make a habit of something — whether it’s listening to music, riding a stationary bike, or renting something that moves.

Part of Lime’s localized strategy is touching on each city’s heritage. For example, Berlin’s ads reference the city’s club culture. (One billboard tells people to take a Lime to places like the KitKat Club, which is known as a famous fetish club.)

“The English translation is ‘When you’re open for dirty fantasies but not dirty air, it’s time to Lime,’” Navarro said. “This is how we think super local. So for me, it’s sort of like how can we find like a little bit of that sharp edge? This category is super ripe for that kind of thinking.”

Lime is just one of several brands looking to get would-be riders to hop onto the micro-mobility wagon. In April, Lyft — which operates electric scooter systems in several major cities and also owns Citibike — debuted a campaign highlighting the diversity of bike riders. In June, Razor debuted its first brand campaign for the company’s scooters and bikes.

Access to e-bikes and e-scooters continues to expand. As of July, 35 cities in the U.S. had dockless bike-share systems and 158 had e-scooter systems, according to the U.S. Dept. of Transportation. Just 19 cities had e-bikes and 93 had e-scooter in 2020, which grew to 34 cities with e-bikes and 136 with e-scooters in 2021. Overall ridership is also trending upward in various cities after falling during the pandemic. In D.C., total bike-share trips grew from 250,000 in July 2020 to 335,000 in 2021 to 42,000 in 2022. And on the west coast, total trips in San Francisco have gone from 340,000 to 462,000 to 533,000.

Tech companies and consumers alike were thinking more about sustainability when it comes to both developing and purchasing products, according to a recent report conducted by Morning Consult. That also could apply to the scooter market, said Jordan Marlatt, a tech analyst at Morning Consult.

“You look like a brand like Tesla and it’s the poster child for EVs [electric vehicles],” said Jordan Marlatt, a tech analyst at Morning Consult. “They’re seen as a tech company rather than just auto. Scooters kind of occupy this space where it’s an alternative for short transport.”

In the video above, Digiday’s media team recaps their top takeaways from the event, and media executives in attendance share the opportunities, challenges and industry trends that are top of mind for them at the moment.

“There is an entire movement in women’s care by and for women that has the potential to revolutionize not just health care but women’s place in society as they are empowered and cared for in new ways,” said Ariadna Navarro, chief strategy officer at the hybrid brand strategy and design agency VSA Partners.

By doing so, Tia wants find ways to get potential customers into their clinics to see, hear and feel what it’s like to be a member of the Tia community. At the same time, the company, which launched in New York in 2017, is aiming to continue to boost awareness in the city with its OOH push.

The network — which touts itself as catering to women by combining key medical services under one roof including primary care, gynecology, mental health services and acupuncture — charges an annual fee to members, entitling them to its in-person and virtual services. The company did not say how many members it has enrolled.

“Given the high awareness in our home city and how consistently booked the clinic is, we’re investing in expansion in New York through the end of 2022,” said Lindsey Belknap, vp of marketing at Tia, adding that the company rolled out a SoHo clinic this month and has plans for one in Williamsburg to open in mid-November. As the brand expands its clinics across the city, billboards, wallscapes, and digital out-of-home kiosks will be displayed throughout SoHo and Williamsburg to boost awareness.

With the help of creative agency Big Spaceship, with 16 credited employees, the 30-second spot and three 15-second videos feature real Tia members for the OOH campaign and real Tia health care providers. The spots aim to highlight the importance of women being heard and seen in health care through videos, provocative billboards, and bold photography.

It is unclear how much of the Tia’s advertising budget is allocated to this campaign, as Belknap would not share overall budget specifics. According to Pathmatics data, the brand spent  $864,000 this year on advertising efforts, which is up from $643,000 in 2021. However, Belknap said about half of its budget was spent on OOH, 25% on digital advertising, and the remainder was split between events and influencers. No influencers were used for this campaign, per Belknap.

The ads were designed to fit the TikTok Reels and Instagram Stories format — and shot with a “social-first lens” — or vertically, said Belknap. Belknap credits its increase in Instagram followers, which increased by 40% this year, to content production. The following grew from 50,000 to 52,000 from January to August, according to Sproutsocial, a social media metrics tracker.

In addition, the campaign went live at a timely moment after the Dobbs decision and overturn of Roe v. Wade earlier in the year. “There has never been a more important time to protect and expand primary care to ensure women are getting regular, comprehensive preventative care from providers who support women’s choices about their lives and bodies,” said Belknap.

Tia plans to open new clinics in SoHo, Williamsburg, and Santa Monica by the end of Q1 2023 and is eyeing further expansions across the country.

“We need more health care partners in the U.S. who understand the specific physical, mental and psychosocial needs of women and can deliver the high-quality care they deserve across their entire lives, not siloed into body parts or life stages,” said Belknap.