Month: January 2023

“Far too often, queer and trans-people are not given a seat at the decision-making table,” Schatzberg said. “When my partners and I set out to create our own agency, we knew first hand how important it was to foster a culture that uplifts and empowers marginalized voices.”

In 2018, he shifted his approach when he founded General Idea Agency to break the mold of leadership predominantly comprised of white, heterosexual men whose behavior was still influenced by societal norms at the time.

He’s also encouraged his employees at General Idea Agency to be themselves. And is mindful that these collaborative environments — where everyone feels creative, safe and heard — will lead to growth.

Empower brands

The New York-based shop, which works with luxury clients like Swarovski, Fresh, Prada Group, Louis Vuitton, Snap and Mattel, among other brands, has 27 employees. By being honest about his identity, as well as fostering an environment where employees feel comfortable doing the same, Schatzberg believes that the agency can push brands to be better for everyone as General Idea Agency provides education, role models and mentorship to tackle these topics.

“We are a group of diverse, LGBTQIA+ people who have a seat at the table of who gets to represent brands, and we’re keeping brands accountable and ensuring they’re prioritizing who they cast and elevate,” said Schatzberg.

That belief has helped inspire employees like Lucas Lefler, creative director at General Ideas, who has led creative and art direction over the last two years for brands including Swarovski, Tory Burch and Lanvin Group. “General Idea pulls inspiration from all aspects of art, culture, design and technology when creating work,” said Leffer. “Ian’s leadership and insights allows us to stay at the forefront of the industry while encouraging us to develop work that tap into the world around us.”

Henrik Zachrisson, an associate creative director at General Idea has been with the company over the last two years and worked for brands like The Parent Company, Fresh, Veronica Beard and Moncler Genius. “The cross-disciplinary nature of the work has kept me engaged at General Idea,” Zachrisson said.

In some cases, General Idea is working with clients to solve an immediate project or business challenge; others in an ongoing capacity. For example, the agency is currently working with Prada to bring physical out-of-home experiences to its retail stores. “Ian has a sharply strategic mind and an acute understanding of the luxury, retail space,” said Chris Bugg, Prada Group, group communication director. “He is highly creative, reinventing the nature of his work and how he works with brands. He understands what it takes to work with big, global brands.”

Schatzberg is looking to expand beyond fashion and luxury clients into the hospitality space, as well as into health and wellness. The agency recently created a digital branding strategy to capture the nuances, look, and textures of Ash Hotels across the country. In 2022, The General Idea Group’s revenue is $25 million, 30% higher year-over-year from $7.5 million in 2021 according to Schatzberg.

Schatzberg wants to expand the agency’s capabilities beyond branding and at the end of last year acquired Reference NYC, a four-year-old technology arts studio that has focused on areas like spatial communication and and motion design. Reference’s clients include LEGO, Levi’s and Byredo. And with this acquisition, General Idea will continue to focus on emerging fields like Web3 and future-facing aesthetic experiences.

Acquisitions for the better

By acquiring Reference NYC, Schatzberg aims for General Idea Agency to lead in strategy, design, and experience and also having an inclusive and diverse staff. Through collaboration with its partners from General Idea, Tanner Graham, co-founder and managing partner and Semjon Doenhoff, co-founder and executive creative director, the company hopes to fight commoditization by transforming behavior at the highest level, not through ads or commercials.

“We are not a traditional branding advertising agency,” said Schatzberg, “We are interested in the holistic presence of how brands enter the world and stay at the forefront. We’re thinking about total brand and customer experience as it relates to building worlds for businesses and are thinking about what it means for a brand to find their place, how brands can design products and experiences in retail, technology at pop-ups, conceptualizing story design and more.”

With Reference NYC, Schatzberg is working on closing the diversity gap in the industry, which has been a challenge for agencies and brands in the past. According to Schatzberg, its agency consists of 36% BIPOC individuals, though he did not provide an exact report with diversity stats.

“I firmly believe that excellent work breeds more excellent work and my strategy has always been to offer a strategic mindset to clients coupled with excellence in execution across design, story and experience,” said Schatzberg. “This strategy has fueled our growth and should continue to do so in the future.”

It’s a promising acknowledgement for TikTok as the ad industry enters 2023 with marketers eyeing the channels they’ve come to count on as a potential recession looms. And overall, marketers seem to be far more confident in the short-form video app. Think Estee Lauder, Spindrift and Supergut.

Granted, these brands are arguably still experimenting with what advertising on TikTok means for them, and don’t hold it to the same level of scrutiny as other platforms — yet. But this is clearly that period of discovery marketers go on before opting to go steady with a platform.

Why is confidence growing?

TikTok has gone to lengths to appease advertisers and win over their dollars. This year alone, the platform’s ad formats, personalization and bidding strategies have become far more sophisticated.

For starters, marketers now have a wealth of ad formats and units to play with. Previously, advertisers would have had to pay for sponsored hashtags or to promote brand videos, said Tom Sweeney, head of strategy at Fanbytes by Brainlabs, who noted that he recently “saw a movie theater promote its film showtimes and enable customers to book in-app.”

TikTok also increased personalization on the platform over the past 12 months. Previously, Sweeney said it was broad-stroke demographic-based targeting. But now, the platform has — and is willing to share with advertisers — deep rooted psychological data about its users, based on what they’re consuming.

“The personalisation options have got to a pretty good point,” Sweeney added. “It’s more based on user psychology than Instagram or Facebook, or any other platforms, which are largely now reliant on AI and machine learning to serve ads. TikTok probably remains the last bastion of specific targeting. It’s interesting that it moved in that direction, whereas others haven’t.”

Additionally, TikTok introduced new bidding strategies. In October, it went live with Focused View, which was designed to reach viewers who actually engage with an ad — not just wait for it to end, while advertisers saw it as a competitor to YouTube, given that that platform has a five-second view product.

TikTok, however, is offering a greater watch time. And given that TikToks are much shorter than a typical YouTube video, it would appear the platform was gunning for Google, said Sweeney. 

“It’s great if storytelling is a key part of your ads, and it does a good job of proving that creative is the most important aspect now. Particularly on other platforms, brands are investing a lot more in their creative than they were in purely distribution,” Sweeney said.

The same goes for media dollars. For example, Disney+ increased its ad spending from just under $3 million in the first quarter of 2022 to $17.9 million in the third quarter, according to Sensor Tower. That’s a 496% rise, albeit from a much lower base compared to other platforms.

Other advertisers appear to be of the same view, as Benoit Vatere, CEO of digital media company Mammoth Media, explained: “When looking at the brands Mammoth Media works with, we’re seeing a similar pattern as more and more brands are starting to spend on TikTok due to frustration in increasing costs on Facebook with a decrease in performance.”

Digital marketing agency Power Digital’s TikTok budgets have grown over 100% year-on-year on average. It was even more for advertising over Black Friday and Cyber Monday week, with spending over the period up 170% compared to a year ago. Rob Jewell, chief growth officer at Power Digital expanded on the point: “We anticipate a similar growth trajectory in 2023 as advertisers will continue to see ROI improve on the platform, especially in visual-first industries: beauty and fashion have seen 6x higher sales conversions on TikTok compared to Meta.”

Clearly the improvements TikTok made this year had a positive impact on some brands. So much so that some agency execs have witnessed a shift with their clients. Beth Carroll, head of social at Iris, which works with brands such as Adidas, Samsung and Pizza Hut, noted her clients now prioritize TikTok as much as Meta on media plans.

TikTok is maturing

Furthermore, Rhys Westwell, head of performance, performics at Zenith believes TikTok has grown from simply an experimental platform to a more mature social app over the last year. 

“From a digital perspective, if we’re working on awareness or brand campaigns, TikTok is the third platform after YouTube and Meta,” he said.

However, while updates and innovations have certainly got advertisers excited, it’s not converted all the ad dollars just yet.

Thomas Esposito, digital marketing leader in biddable at performance marketing agency Croud commented that much of the work for his clients on TikTok remains very experimental. As such, it’s not held to the same KPIs and expectations as other platforms.

Which makes sense, as Amy Gilbert, head of social at The Social Element pointed out, doing well on TikTok with paid ads is very different to other social media platforms. “You really have to make TikTok native content, whereas you might have been able to get away with other more generic ads on other platforms,” she said.

But the fact is, once brands start experimenting with advertising, they don’t necessarily stop. 

Experimentation never ends

Fanbytes, for example, has seen a massive uptake in advertising on TikTok, driven by the creative and cultural influence the platform has. TikTok’s share of marketing dollars won’t necessarily increase because of the technology or ad units it’s building, according to Sweeney. They’ll increase as brands become more confident.

“If you really lean into trends and how people use the app, such as song or challenge of the month, you’ll get far more out of it,” commented Westwell. 

It’s fair to say, TikTok has forced marketers to rethink how social content and ads should be both created and consumed.

As per Insider Intelligence, direct-to-consumer (T2C) brands spent 231% more advertising on TikTok in Q2 2022 than the previous year, data from analytics firm Triple Whale showed, and this was largely driven by brands with revenues between $1 million to $5 million.

But while TikTok is on par with Meta and YouTube, these more established social apps are at an inflection point, whereby their ads businesses are challenged, presenting a perfect opportunity for the platform to swipe some of those dollars.

Challenges ahead

Of course, TikTok still has its own issues and headlines to contend with. Particularly  misinformation, disinformation, as well as security risks related to its ties to China via parent company ByteDance. The latter, for example, recently caused U.S. lawmakers at both the national and state level to move forward with legislation to ban government employees from using TikTok on government-owned devices and computer networks.

That said, marketers’ investment into any platform is based on its popularity and ability to deliver decent ROI. Right now, that’s TikTok. So marketers will likely only care as much as they are required to — providing there’s no real reputational damage to their brands.

Marketers cannot simply put TikTok on the back burner and hope the reach is going to come from somewhere else or there’s safer inventory because quite simply there isn’t, said Sweeney. 

“We’re at the point TikTok has been around long enough, we’ve got enough great case studies to prove what works,” Sweeney explained. “The creative is unbelievable, there are specialist agencies like us in the space, we’ve delivered amazing results for up and coming brands and made a genuine impact on the bottom line for them. 

“TikTok is no longer just a platform for awareness and views. It can now be a full funnel product.“

Nearly 80% of the more than 70 agency professionals surveyed by Digiday+ Research in December said their companies’ revenues increased in 2022, and more than two-thirds said they think their revenues will increase again this year.

Digiday also found that this optimism extends to agencies’ ad spending on behalf of their clients.

Digiday’s survey found that after a strong year of client spending in 2022, agency pros expect more of the same in 2023 — even as the economy remains on uneven ground. Last year, 55% of agencies said their companies’ ad spending on behalf of clients increased. And this year, 59% expect clients’ ad spend to increase further. It is important to note the extent to which ad spending increased. Most of the respondents to Digiday’s survey (45%) who said their clients’ ad spend increased in 2022 said that spend increased somewhat. Meanwhile, only 11% of respondents said their clients’ ad spend increased significantly.

Interestingly, the percentage of agency pros who expect clients’ ad spending to decrease in 2023 came in lower than the percentage of respondents who said their clients’ spending actually decreased in 2022. More than a quarter (26%) said their company’s ad spending on behalf of clients decreased in 2022, while only 18% expect their spending on behalf of clients to decrease in 2023.

And while more than half of agencies saying their clients increased ad spend during what turned out to be a tumultuous year is a definite win in the current economic climate, the reality of client spending in 2022 did fall well short of agencies’ expectations for the year. According to Digiday’s survey of agency pros last year, 81% expected their companies’ ad spending on behalf of clients would increase in 2022. That’s a lot more than the 56% who said their clients actually did increase ad spending in 2022. In 2021, 70% of agency pros told Digiday their clients’ ad spending increased.

Breaking down this year’s data a bit further, it turns out that most of the expected growth in 2023 will likely be small. Nearly half of respondents to Digiday’s survey (47%) said they expect their companies’ ad spending on behalf of clients to increase only somewhat in 2023, compared with only 12% who said the increase will be significant this year. Nearly a quarter (23%) said they think their clients’ ad spending will neither increase nor decrease this year.

The key hits: 

• After facing more than six months of headwinds, publishers are cautiously approaching their 2023 plans.
• Reader revenue is at risk as much as advertising revenue. 
• Cost-cutting will remain a necessity in the first half of the year, media execs predict.
• Publishers will take their best bets on any new projects or product launches, but the prioritized platforms are already running the gamut from owned-and-operated channels to social media platforms. 

Many publishers prepared their 2023 budgets and playbooks with a conservative mindset after 2022 ended up being more focused on survival than growth. 

Even though they’re backed with the belief that the economic downturn is likely going to persist through the first couple quarters of the year, media executives are hesitant to look ahead beyond the first half of the year.

Bracing and pacing for the economic downturn 

Last year’s economic turbulence didn’t suddenly quell when the ball dropped on New Year’s Day, but the previous six months of headwinds did give media execs time to plan out their events calendar around the predicted dips in advertising revenue in the first half of 2023. 

“We saw the slowdown really happened in Q2 [2022] … [In] Q4, we didn’t have that influx like we normally do, and what’s happening is that it’s getting pushed into Q1,” said Sherry Phillips, CRO of Forbes. “So I feel optimistic about Q1, but what I’m predicting might be potentially soft March and April.” 

To combat some of that softness, Phillips said the company’s tentpole events have been spaced out to ensure revenue is coming in from the events business, even when the broader advertising market is underperforming. But overall, she is predicting that the back half of 2023 will be the main opportunity to recoup any losses accrued between January and June. 

Meanwhile, Apartment Therapy Media’s president, Riva Syrop, said during an episode of the Digiday Podcast last year that her team is delaying its tentpole commerce event franchise Small/Cool until the fall 2023 to give sponsors “breathing room,” which will hopefully improve the chances of selling all ad inventory associated with the event.

Even still, a continuation of last-minute deals and tight sales cycles will keep even the most cautious publishers on rocky terrain. “People are really planning month-to-month and week-to-week; it’s not quarter-by-quarter. So it will be hard to predict just based on that,” Phillips said.  – Kayleigh Barber

Reader revenue is on the rocks 

The economic slowdown in the advertising industry is just the tip of the iceberg. Coming out of one of the most costly times of the year (the December holiday season), many consumers will make budgeting a resolution for 2023. 

This means all costs deemed unnecessary will be put on the chopping block, so publishers that haven’t solidified themselves as a daily habit or a critical resource to subscribers will be at risk of losing recurring revenue, according to Scott Havens, CEO of Bloomberg Media.

“Regardless of what happens with the global macroeconomic environment [this year], we still think the battle to acquire, engage and retain customers in this increasingly fatigued, competitive and fragmented media environment is the key to success over the long term,” said Havens in an email to Digiday. “Publishers that fail to position themselves as ‘must have’ … and are instead considered ‘nice to have’ by their customers will continue to struggle and perhaps [struggle to] exist.”

The Wall Street Journal’s CRO, Josh Stinchcomb, said new editorial and commerce products launched last year across the Dow Jones catalog are critical for both diversifying advertising revenue and consumer revenue by giving readers more accessible content through their subscriptions. 

But one big question mark will be around how much publishers can offer readers when cost-cutting measures like hiring freezes and layoffs impact the workforce that’s meant to create and manage these new products. 

Recessions “can actually be great moments for innovation,” according to The Atlantic’s CEO Nicholas Thompson. Despite teams getting scrappier and it becoming “harder to find new subscribers in the places we traditionally search for them, we’re figuring out new places to efficiently look.”  – Kayleigh Barber

“Cost discipline” era likely to continue

The moves many publishers put into motion last year to manage costs will continue taking effect this year. If the economy doesn’t improve, publishers will evaluate their businesses to look for more areas to cut, which likely means further hiring freezes, layoffs and office space reductions in 2023. 

“There’s a kind of cost discipline that you’re seeing across so many media businesses right now,” said a publishing exec who asked to remain anonymous. The media industry has seen these headwinds coming, and executives are managing costs to be prepared for challenging times.

But if the economy stabilizes, the worst of it might be behind us, said Craig Huber, media analyst and founder of research and advisory firm Huber Research Partners.

Some publishing executives were optimistic that the cost-cutting decisions they enacted last year are enough to carry them into 2023 successfully. As we previously reported, publishers faced macroeconomic headwinds in the back half of last year that resulted in disappointing ad revenue. However, in Q3 earnings calls last year, execs at Gannett and IAC said that despite those declines, they were hopeful revenue would start to increase again in Q4 and in the beginning of 2023.

Other companies are not as confident. BuzzFeed, which had flat ad revenue in Q3, plans to let go of about 12% of its workforce by the end of Q1 2023 to “weather an economic downturn that I believe will extend well into 2023,” BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti wrote in a memo to employees. The Washington Post is also planning layoffs this year. – Sara Guaglione

Follow the reader

Creating more products and offerings will not only boost member programs but will create more ad inventory to sell that doesn’t require splitting profits with platforms through revenue shares. For Insider, chasing the revenue potential of readers coming to its website is one of the biggest opportunities in 2023.

“One [goal] that we’re really focused on is how do we get more people to spend more time with Insider on our owned-and-operated properties. We think that there’s more of an opportunity to make Insider a part of people’s everyday routine and I think that there’s a huge value in that to advertisers,” said Maggie Milnamow, CRO of Insider. 

Meanwhile, other publishers are following audiences to the platforms they’re naturally drawn to versus trying to corral them back to their O&O properties. 

For Vice Media Group, it’s a priority to grow social media revenue in 2023 across everything from short-form, vertical video on platforms like TikTok and Instagram to livestream programming on platforms like Twitch, according to Cory Haik, the company’s chief operating officer. This goal was set following the increased share in total revenue that this business contributed in 2022, although Haik wouldn’t disclose hard revenue figures for this revenue stream.

The chance of making more money from short-form vertical video platforms, like TikTok and YouTube Shorts, may be influential enough in a down economy to reignite the pivot to video mantra of 2016. – Kayleigh Barber

What we’ve heard

“[Twitch] is not right for every publisher. If you have the DNA to understand how to build and grow an audience on Twitch, and you lean into personalities, I think it can be really successful. But you have to know your audience and where they live.” 

– Nick Cicero, vp of strategy at Conviva 

3 Qs with the L.A. Times on DEI challenges and goals in 2023

In the past two years, the L.A. Times has improved the diversity of its workforce and in 2021, 43% of its overall employees were white (a two percentage point decrease from 2020) and managers were 55% white (a four percentage point decrease). The company, however, increased the share of white employees in its editorial department by two percentage points from 2020 to 57%.

Digiday spoke to Angel Jennings, assistant managing editor for culture and talent at the L.A. Times, and Nicola Franklin, senior director of talent management & organization development, to hear how they are measuring the progress of the L.A. Times’ DEI goals, what the challenges are to achieving those goals and what they are planning to focus on in 2023.

This conversation has been edited and condensed. 

How would you describe the L.A. Times’ progress with its DEI goals in 2022?

Jennings: I’ve been extremely proud of the hires we’ve made, the promotions that have taken place — how we brought in people with unconventional thinking. But we’re inching along. We were hoping by now we would be sprinting. But also, I’m two years into management. Of course you think, ‘oh we can fix this overnight.’ I’m learning you can’t. It takes complete commitment from the whole team [on] long-term goals… Like many companies, we also face challenges in retaining people. We’re a large metropolitan paper and we have national competitors.

How do national competitors impact the L.A. Times’ retention efforts?

Franklin: With all of the changes in working practices that COVID has brought about, we’re now facing much more increased competition – not just from the East Coast but across the country – than we ever have before. It’s a clear benefit if we can attract those people, but it also means we are more at risk of people finding other roles elsewhere. Now they don’t have to move to do that, whereas in the past, they would have had to relocate.

What’s the focus of the L.A. Times’ DEI goals in 2023?

Jennings: We’ve started [a monthly listening tour in 2022] and we [will continue it in 2023]. We have engaged the community in a way we’ve never done before, bringing together critics, subscribers, activists, academia – to find story ideas, to discuss our missteps openly, to actively source for ideas and just have a pipeline for people to have a conversation that’s not one-sided.

[2021] was the first time we attended the various affinity conferences [in person], like the AAJA, NABJ [and] NAHJ, and we’re going to continue with that. We actually had some great success getting the brand out there, meeting some amazing talent … Part of my job is the internship and fellowship program — I’m part of cultivating the pipeline. That requires having some tough conversations with journalism schools and deans and departments. When I see the list of people that are applying to my program and I don’t see it’s very diverse, I very bluntly say, ‘We will not continue partnerships with you guys.’ … I have very candid conversations with them [like]: ‘This pool is not diverse enough. What are you doing to make sure you bring in more journalists of color? What can I do to help you?’ Sometimes it’s just calling them out.

Numbers to know

$414 million: The amount Meta was fined by EU regulators due to illegal advertising practices that go against GDPR.

20 years: The amount of time Rupert Murdoch’s companies Fox and News Corp renewed their Midtown Manhattan office leases for, a contrast to many other media companies who have downsized or sublet their office spaces to cut costs. 

2,000%: The percentage increase in the number of live podcast recordings since 2013. 

What we’ve covered

Digiday’s top media trends to watch in 2023: 

• Based on the conversations Digiday Podcast co-hosts Tim Peterson and Kayleigh Barber have had with media executives and brand-side leaders, the current economy’s murky waters could be tricky to cross without taking on collateral damage. 
• Hear from the editors on Digiday’s media beat about the top trends they’ll be following in the new year on the latest episode of the podcast. 

Listen to the conversation here.

WSJ, Insider, BDG among publishers revisiting pandemic lessons in business ops as potential recession looms:

• After learning fast on their feet in 2020, publishers had to make some changes to the way they conducted business. 
• Nearly three years later, several of those changes are still in place — guardrails media execs now hope will help them weather this pending economic storm.

Read more about publishers’ recession playbook here. 

The definitive Digiday guide to what’s in and out for advertising in 2023:

• Adland saw its fair share of ups and downs this year.
• Take a look at the Digiday editors’ comprehensive list of what’s in and out in the media and marketing industries.

See the list here. 

‘The shine has definitely come off’: Digiday’s top takeaways from 2022:

• This year ended up looking quite different from what was predicted by Digiday’s editors at the beginning of 2022, but it made for a fascinating saga to follow. 
• Hear from some of Digiday’s reporters and editors on the media and media buying beats about their top takeaways and trends from 2022.  

Listen to the podcast episode here.

What it’s like working alongside a sibling in the media industry:

• Media can be a family business. Take some of the most recognizable surnames from the industry: Murdoch, Cox, Hearst, Newhouse, Sulzberger.
• In some cases, the industry is still a family profession.

Hear from execs about what it’s like to work with their siblings in the media industry here.

What we’re reading

Vox Media is the latest publisher to ban fossil fuel ads:

Publisher of Vox, New York Magazine and SB Nation said that it’ll no longer run ads from fossil fuel companies, a policy that’s supposedly been in place since early 2021, but is now formalized as of the start of 2023, according to Marketing Brew. 

TikTok tracked journalists while investigating company leaks: 

TikTok’s parent company ByteDance fired four employees after an internal investigation revealed they accessed data on two journalists and other U.S. users to track down a company leak, according to Forbes.

The Guardian closes its offices until Jan. 23 after suspected ransomware attack:

The Guardian’s staff have been working remotely since Dec. 20 after its global IT systems were impacted by a suspected ransomware attack. Employees were asked to continue working from home for the next three weeks to reduce strain on the publisher’s networks, according to the Press Gazette. 

Local journalism is thriving in Marblehead, Mass.: 

A positive indicator for the business of local news is that local communities will rally to fill a news void after their beloved local paper is removed. That’s what happened in Marblehead after Gannett shifted the town’s longtime weekly from local to regional coverage. In the months that followed, the Marblehead Beacon, the Marblehead Current and the Marblehead Weekly News were all launched, reports the Boston Globe. 

The podcast boom is over: 

After maturing over the past couple of years, the podcast industry has finally entered the phase of growing pains commonly felt in an economic downturn by more established media companies, including hiring freezes, smaller upfront payments and fewer acquisitions, according to Bloomberg. 

As with so many of its recent deals with retail media networks and platforms, parent Omnicom’s Omni marketing orchestration platform plays a key role in pairing up with Albertsons shopper data to better connect targeted media investment to consumer purchasing trends. And with CTV arguably the hottest medium for marketers — but fraught with insufficient and fragmented data offerings — the timing could prove an advantage for both buyer and seller.

By tying first-party data to The Trade Desk’s inventory, retail media networks can alleviate some of CTV’s data shortfalls problem by “closing the loop” for brands investing in CTV. Ergo, brands can tailor advertising spend to Albertsons shoppers and measure the effectiveness of ad campaigns at the register within TTD’s platform.

“TV historically has been measured on GRPs, but never measured on sales. With this colliding of retail media and connected TV, it’s changing that,” said Megan Pagliuca, OMG’s chief activation officer. “We can actually have an understanding of online and offline sales when working with the largest screen in the household.”

Pagliuca added that the deal gives the media agency network “first to market capability of targeting and measurement” when combining Albertsons’ datasets with Omni’s audiences.

Kristi Argyilan, svp of retail media at Albertsons Companies, added that the partnership moves the retail media business forward. “We’re not just about running campaigns that carry price and promotion and a product,” said Argyilan. “The more advanced capabilities of a retail media network applied to other channels like CTV really shows what retail media will be bringing to the marketplace longer term.”

Argyilan, a longtime media veteran who’s been a media agency CEO (at IPG’s Magna) and a head of marketing at Target (and later, Target’s retail media offering, Roundel), said it’s the potential to improve TV, where so many marketers’ budgets still go, that has her excited. According to a recent Insider Intelligence report, CTV ad revenue is expected to grow more than 27 percent in 2023 to $26.92 billion.

“Showing performance based on impressions that are delivered, versus performance that shows a business outcome is really what this [partnership] is all about,” she said. “From my perspective, having come up on the media side of the industry and always wishing the channel that we all spend the bulk of our ad budgets on can be more accountable. This is us finally getting there as an industry.”

As for working this partnership through only TTD’s inventory, both Argyilan and Pagliuca cited their respective companies’ existing partnerships that allow for a triangulation of sorts. “We have a deep partnership with them, and we’ve actually co-developed tools together, and work very closely on innovating,” said Pagliuca. “So we kind of view them as one of our key strategic partners alongside Google and Amazon.”

“To be able to start to answer some of these questions on how television can drive sales in a more real time fashion, instead of having to wait until your marketing mix modeling can prove it after the fact is, to me, the holy grail in terms of what retail media can bring to key partners,” added Argyilan. 

The murder of George Floyd in May 2020 put a spotlight on newsrooms’ lack of coverage and attention on racial and social justice issues. It spurred media organizations to improve the diversity of their workforces — diversity, equity and inclusion leaders were hired, new teams were created, training was required. And new goals were set.

But how are these efforts stacking up, almost three years later?

“Having a diverse workforce, diverse reporters and diverse editors — and even people who are not particularly diverse but who are sensitive to those issues — makes a difference,” Richard Prince, a columnist at Journal-isms.com who covers diversity in the media, told Digiday. “And we have made a lot of progress in that area, in certain places. I wouldn’t deny the industry that. There can be some improvements but there have been some already, which should be recognized.”

Diversity stats from 2020 to now 

Digiday has tracked publishers’ self-reported diversity statistics as there is not a consistent, wholistic measurement of this across the industry.

“First and foremost, any journey in any improvement in representation at any organization starts with understanding the data and the transparency of the demographics of the makeup of the workforce, which is so critical,” said Terri McClements, PwC’s senior partner and DEI consulting leader.

Here’s how they’re faring, from 2020 to now, based on the latest data these companies have shared:

The biggest differences are at BuzzFeed (an eight percentage point difference), NPR (a six percentage point difference), Condé Nast (a four percentage point difference) and The New York Times (three percentage point difference). The other publishers have moved the needle by a few percentage points.

“We didn’t get into this problem overnight. And you can’t just hire your way out of it. You’ve got to have the infrastructure in place with the environment where people feel like they belong, that they have a seat at the table. And you also have to have room for people to grow,” said Angel Jennings, assistant managing editor for culture and talent at the L.A. Times.

Dorothy Tucker, president of the National Association of Black Journalists, said she is “encouraged” by the progress made by media companies to diversify their workforces over the last few years.

“We have seen the first Black presidents of a major broadcast news company and cable news channel and the first high-ranking Black editors at several traditional newspapers that have gone 100-plus years with no people of color at the helm,” she said in an email.

Tucker said it is critical to that these changes are “part of a long-term plan for forward movement,” and that the “eagerness for change… doesn’t fade away with time.” This spring, the NABJ plans to survey its membership to gauge industry progress. Previous surveys have shown Black journalists were not satisfied with their experience at newsrooms and media companies.

Most of these companies have also reached parity when it comes to the share of male and female employees. BuzzFeed, Condé Nast, The New York Times, NPR, Vice Media Group and Vox Media all have a majority of female employees.

Employees at Gannett, Hearst and The Washington Post are still mostly male. Of the companies listed, The Washington Post had the smallest share of women, at 45%. Hearst’s editorial team is 43% female. Men make up the majority of managers at Gannett, Hearst, the Los Angeles Times and Vice Media Group. Vice Media Group’s leadership is 37% female.

The work publishers have done so far

While the ratio of white to non-white employees has moved, the diversity of new hires could push back on these stats. In this area, publishers aren’t faring as well. A majority of new hires are still white — other than at the L.A. Times, The New York Times, Vice Media Group and Vox Media.

News organizations have begun offering new training programs, including:

• Behavioral interviewing for managers at the L.A. Times, to ensure managers are asking candidates questions about their “soft skills,” such as their ability to collaborate or “use different voice for different audiences,” in addition to “hard, technical skills,” said Nicola Franklin, senior director of talent management & organization development at the L.A. Times.
• Candidates for senior editorial positions at Insider are now asked during their interviews about diversity (including their perspective on hiring, retention and career development)
• Since 2020, NPR has required every finalist pool and hiring committee to have racial, ethnic and gender diversity
• Condé Nast, Insider, the L.A. Times and NPR have made it mandatory since 2020 for managers to undergo unconscious bias training

Publishers are also working with organizations to help improve the diversity of their talent pipeline. BuzzFeed, for example, hosts conferences and panels with organizations such as The Multicultural Advertising Internship Program (MAIP), Council of Urban Professionals (CUP) and HBCUs. Insider offers one-year fellowships to people coming from HBCUs. 

Publishers have also developed new ways to promote people internally into leadership positions by making it easier for employees to know when positions are available. BuzzFeed and the L.A. Times, for example, now inform employees about internal job positions, through Slack channels and job alerts.

But talking about these issues and retaining the talent these programs intend to attract are two different things.

Retaining employees from diverse backgrounds is a challenge publishers continue to face, especially when there are systemic issues at hand. For example, Black and Latino staffers at The New York Times were far less likely than their white peers to receive strong job ratings, according to an internal audit in August conducted by the newsroom’s union.

An even more damning report from The Washington Post’s union in April found women and people of color were being paid less than their male and white peers. More than 1 in 3 workers who left the newsroom in 2020 were Black. In 2020 and the first half of 2021, 52% of new hires were people of color — but 45% of those who left the newsroom were people of color (and they only made up 22% of the newsroom).

In February, a survey of over 1,500 U.S. news media members conducted by Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications found less than a third of respondents said their organizations had made changes to encourage retention and inclusion.

Publishers’ commitments — and how far they’ve come

Publishers have a number of ambitious goals for their DEI work in 2023. 

Gannett wants to achieve year-over-year improvement in overall workforce representation. The Times wants to increase Black and Hispanic/Latino representation in leadership by 50% by 2025. Condé Nast wants 50% of potential job candidates from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds every year.

“The next level of data analysis and insight is going to be focused on the advancement of our diverse workforce,” said McClements. “It’s [about] ‘How are we doing at advancing and creating an inclusive leadership group that is more diverse than it ever has been?’ That takes work, that takes intentionality, that takes succession planning — and that takes challenging practices that have probably been long in place at many organizations.”

The role of ERGs in diversity efforts

This past year was a year of “action,” said Chris Clermont, head of DEI+ at Vox Media. Next year, the focus will be on transparency, more meetings and “clarity in our communications,” to ensure that employees are “feeling” the changes taking place.

“We are moving away from multi-year strategies” to focus on “sprint cycles,” to encourage quick change, Clermont said.

ERGs — or employee-led networking groups formed around shared identities or interests — have cropped up since 2020. Four new ERGs have been added at Vox since Clermont came onboard. Vice Media Group now has six ERGs. Gannett has 12 ERGs, up from four in 2017.

ERGs often work in tandem with DEI leaders at media companies. In the Northwestern University study, 56% of respondents said their news organizations have formal positions devoted to DEI and advocacy work.

These hires help by not only increasing diversity in numbers, “but also changing the climate [and practices] in the newsroom… so more people feel welcome,” Prince said. Employees shouldn’t have to feel like they are “banging on the door to try to get in… They have to be free to express and give the point of view that they sincerely hold, instead of just trying to mimic what their bosses think,” he said.

Economic challenges to diversity efforts

Perhaps the biggest challenge to these efforts is the macroeconomic environment, and the impact it’s having on media businesses. Waves of layoffs and hiring freezes means less room to hire people in general, and a potential slowdown to diversity efforts, Prince said.

“It’s so important and critical that as these cuts are happening across our industry, that we think about how do we not set back the entire industry by laying off journalists of color?” Jennings said. “I hope in 2023 that managers, editors and owners are intentional about who we need to keep in this industry for the longevity of telling America’s story.”

Prince added: “We just need to keep this thread going, and keep those hopes realized that were articulated after George Floyd.”