Data-Labor-Technology

You could argue that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign through a savvy combination of organic posts and targeted ad spending would be a great Facebook case study. Alas, Facebook’s strategy for explaining to marketers the part it played in the 2016 U.S. presidential election is simple: Deflect, deflect, deflect.

Facebook is in a Catch-22. If it says it did influence the election’s results, that proves its advertising works, opening it up to a firestorm of negativity and questions about its role in democracy. Digiday spoke to 10 media buyers for this piece, all of whom said that overall, Facebook’s response to questions about whether the ads worked to sway the election is to change the topic of conversation.

“They never bring it up themselves,” said an ad buyer at a major agency. “When we do, they deflect. Usually, it’s by saying, ‘Look at all these amazing changes we’ve made to the news feed.’” A CEO at another agency said he’s not surprised: “We’re not getting much from Facebook on this when we do ask.” A third media buyer said, “When it comes up, it tends to be through the context of something major, like an update they’re making.”

In February, U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russian nationals who used Facebook and Instagram to sway votes with social media disinformation campaigns, among other tactics.

In response, Facebook has been on overdrive. The company’s executives have said publicly that they are cooperating with Mueller and the U.S. government and sharing the ads to try and figure out how the Russians abused the system. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg have both said, essentially, that Facebook has to do better. But at the same time, there are an equal number of executives who, using Twitter in particular, are systematically refuting claims that Facebook directly influenced the election.

“[Agencies] don’t necessarily bring it up because we raise it ourselves,” said Erik Geisler, director of U.S. agency at Facebook, in a statement. “There’s so much work we’re doing right now focused on the safety of our community, and the integrity of the platform, that we feel it’s important that our partners are aware and that we’re answering all their questions.”

According to buyers, Facebook did spend time before the election pitching that the company’s ads are effective — and perfect for elections. So for it to say they’re not effective is simply not an option. In a tweet, Andrew Bosworth, vp of consumer hardware, said as much: “Agreed that ads work.”

In the fall, Facebook sent a letter to agency teams that outlined its approach. In what seemed to be a way to ensure agencies were aware of public statements, the letter pointed out a blog post by Joel Kaplan, Facebook vp of public policy, on how Facebook was increasing enforcement of ad policies. It also mentioned a November test in Canada to let people see the ads a company page is running across Facebook, Audience Network and Instagram, which it says aligns with the company’s “election integrity work” in that country. It said Facebook was building an archive to show election-related ads and provide details on spend, impressions and targeting as well.

“Seems to me the main point was to make sure agencies checked out all the publicly shared info linked in the letter,” said one agency exec.

An agency media director said reps at Facebook don’t seem to have a company line. “They’re hoping to not get into an argument on this and that we can just draw our connections on our own,” said this person. The director, who attended a recent off-site with Facebook executives, added that the conversation around the election usually deflects to that. “At the end of the day, the platform simply works. And for me, even if Facebook swayed the election, then it just tells me it still works,” said this director. “Not all CMOs really care about doing the right thing.”

According to another agency executive who didn’t receive the letter, a conversation happened in October where reps specifically said policies were being updated to require documentation from anyone looking to run an election ad.

Another agency buyer said that “reps are being pretty tight-lipped about the election, pointing to the leadership at Facebook and the information that’s publicly disclosed.” The main message this person hears repeatedly: Things are going to be more secure, and ad monitoring is more important than ever to Facebook.

“It’s an interesting conundrum for Facebook,” said David Eisenman, CEO at Brooklyn-based media and creative agency Madwell. Eisenman said the election spend on Facebook was approximately $100,000, which is an “insignificant amount” if you look at the objective — to sway a nation. “But at the same time,” he said, “Facebook does suggest to marketers that a small business can spend a couple hundred [dollars] a month and see results.” So which is it?

Eisenman said Facebook reps don’t bring up the election, and the agency hasn’t asked about it, either.

Sources told Digiday that Facebook executives tend to directly address the efficacy of election ads at a higher level. For example, Carolyn Everson, vp of global marketing solutions at Facebook, has for a while done internal “Weekly Top 3” posts and videos of what’s on her mind. A couple of weeks ago, she did one for clients, which include agencies and brands, talking about the election and specifically outlining the “integrity efforts” and other things Facebook is doing to make the platform safer for brands.

The media director recognizes the strange spot Facebook is in: “It would be crass from a comms strategy perspective to say, ‘Look at the world; we destroyed it, but at least we did it effectively.’”

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Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey unleashed a series of tweets March 1 where he admitted his company hasn’t addressed abuse, harassment and misinformation on the service fast enough and announced steps to correct the situation.

“We’re committing Twitter to help increase the collective health, openness, and civility of public conversation, and to hold ourselves publicly accountable towards progress,” Dorsey wrote to his 4.2 million followers. He said Twitter would seek help measuring the health of the conversation on Twitter.

We’re committing Twitter to help increase the collective health, openness, and civility of public conversation, and to hold ourselves publicly accountable towards progress.

— jack (@jack) March 1, 2018

The tweetstorm was notable for its candor and sincere tone — tech giants are all under the gun to clean up their acts — but also as a contrast to how Facebook has been using the same platform, with recently disastrous results. It also comes as Twitter has been positioning itself as a friend to high-quality publishers, especially in news.

“Jack’s messaging was precisely what we want: humility rather than infallibility, recognition tech can break communication not just improve and a willingness to learn,” said Jason Kint, the CEO of Digital Content Next and reliable critic of Facebook. “We look forward to solutions and hope the companies with the real industry control and resources step up in a way that they haven’t yet.”

Both Twitter and Facebook not only face growing sentiment that big tech is bad for society but growing rumbles in Congress to regulate big tech companies. Facebook recently faced a firestorm of criticism when its ads vp Rob Goldman stepped into the subject of Russian ads on Facebook with a series of tweets. (Goldman ended up apologizing.) Facebook also been falling out of favor generally with publishers over strategy changes that have hurt their business. Twitter seems to have an edge in the PR war for now, though.

“Jack is much better at his own service,” said David Carroll, an ad tech expert at The New School. “He has a home advantage. He’s deferential. Whereas [Facebook CEO Mark] Zuckerberg’s Twitter activity is very minimal. Facebook also has an open call for funded research, but how are they messaging the existence of that?”

The Dorsey tweets do have something of an orchestrated feel. Dorsey’s been flanked by his CMO Leslie Berland, who has 27,000 followers; and Ed Ho, head of consumer product and engineering, with 10,000 followers. Responses to his tweetstorm ranged from supportive and helpful (ban Trump, get rid of the Nazis, require everyone to be verified) to the skeptical.

Is there a canonical list of all the times @jack has said Twitter is committed to change? Because it hasn’t been true any time before now. https://t.co/vJrw4bJ0r9

— ¡feduardo! (@fedward) March 1, 2018

Dorsey’s thread is similar to what Zuckerberg has done this year: using his company’s platform to communicate that he knows something needs fixing and intends to fix it, said Steven Levy, a longtime technology writer who’s at Wired. “It’s a first step to actually fixing the problem,” he said.

The differences is that Dorsey is using Twitter for primary communication, so it’s important that is own voice comes through, Levy said. “It seems that the Facebook executives are using Twitter for timely responses to what they see as criticism worth engaging with, or disputing. The fact that sometimes it bites them back seems to indicate that those tweets are authentic.”

Twitter’s smaller size relative to Facebook also may help it repair its image because it’s not as dominant as Facebook. The media and marketing community is also eager for platform allies to counter Facebook and Google’s enormity, and Twitter has given the impression it wants to get out ahead of the trolls, bots and other abuses of its service. But as with Facebook, Twitter is vulnerable for having let the abuse problem continue as long as it has, and the PR goodwill will only last so long. It also has a chance to get out ahead of its role being spotlighted in probes of Russia’s meddling in the run-up to the U.S. presidential election in 2016.

To one publishing executive, Dorsey came off as “sincere, not defensive. But they have to actually do something. Talk is cheap. If they want to become a credible publishing entity, they need to take responsibility. And that means action.”

The post While Facebook spars with critics, Twitter goes for humility on social media appeared first on Digiday.

LittleThings shut down after Facebook’s algorithm change cut its organic reach by 75 percent, but it’s not the only social publisher that’s in danger, data from several analytics firms suggests.

Publishers such as Viral Thread, ViralNova, 9gag, Bored Panda, Diply and Distractify have all seen interactions — likes, shares, comments and other reactions — slide precipitously since Facebook announced in January that it would deprioritize publisher content in its news feed, according to Facebook-owned CrowdTangle.

That drop implies Facebook has limited their reach on its platform, bad news for publishers that depend heavily on Facebook for referral traffic, according to data from internet analytics firm Jumpshot. Distractify, for example, saw its monthly traffic decline 78 percent year over year in January and 84 percent year over year in February, with most of the declines attributable to declines in Facebook referral traffic.

Some of these sites are more dependent on Facebook than others — just 12 percent of 9gag’s desktop traffic comes from Facebook, compared to 85 percent for Viral Thread, according to SimilarWeb data. But regardless of how dependent they are, it seems that Facebook sees less value in showing that kind of content to its user base.

“Publishers who had a heavy reliance on gaming Facebook news feed algorithms circa 2016-2017 will be hurting bad right now,” said Matt Navarra, director of social media at The Next Web. “Those publishers who failed to diversify their social platform distribution model or went all-in on Facebook will be regretting it in 2018.”

The declines are just part of a slide that publishers have been riding for over a year. While Facebook prioritized native video and Instant Articles, publisher referral traffic from Facebook declined substantially. In late 2017, Google surpassed Facebook as the top source of publisher referral traffic, leading some search-focused publishers to gloat.

But the severity of these drops varies. The interaction rate on 9gag’s posts fell 50 percent month over month from January to February, according to CrowdTangle data; Viral Thread’s interaction rate fell 32 percent, the second-largest decline month over month, over the past 12 months, according to CrowdTangle data. Neither publisher responded to a request for comment.

In the days following Facebook’s announcement that its users would see 20 percent fewer posts from publishers’ pages in their news feeds, publishers speculated about who would be affected most.

Nearly two months later, the effects are hitting some publishers harder than others. LittleThings was forced to shut its doors, while other publishers have had mild to negligible changes to their referral traffic.

“It’s no surprise the impact on some publishers is minor, whilst for others, it’s utterly devastating,” Navarra said. “We shouldn’t forget Facebook’s push on ‘meaningful engagement.’ Some publishers will be struggling to generate it if their mix of content is not adaptable enough to bend to [Mark Zuckerberg’s] latest desire to drive ‘meaningful interactions.’”

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Bleacher Report wants more Americans to fall in love with European soccer.

Armed with UEFA Champions League and Europa League rights in the U.S., courtesy of parent company Turner, Bleacher Report’s master plan is to leverage its social reach to spotlight stories on soccer culture and European sports stars, as well as the matches themselves.

Part of the plan to build its soccer fan base in the U.S. involves tapping into the popularity of House of Highlights, its Instagram account dedicated to sports highlights, which has 8.3 million followers.

Soccer stars like Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo, FC Barcelona’s Lionel Messi are already well-known globally, but there is scope to build the brands of other footballers who are big in Europe yet aren’t stateside, such as Manchester United’s Paul Pogba and Paris Saint-Germain’s Neymar da Silva Santos Jr., according to James Grigg, director of international operations for Bleacher Report. That’s what Omar Raja, who runs the House of Highlights account that Bleacher Report acquired in 2015, has done already for NBA players.

“What Omar has done with the House of Highlights is pick out the icons in basketball and create great content around them. We will look for similar things for soccer,” Grigg said. “We have a lot of global icons in the game where House of Highlights and Omar can tell their stories, particularly around the intersection of sport and culture.”

Bleacher Report has prepared a list of players that will likely resonate with U.S. audiences, according to Lee Walker, global managing editor at Bleacher Report. He wouldn’t name specific players, but he said they typically have strong social media followings, off-field personalities and personal style, which appeal particularly to younger audiences.

Content around those players will then be supplemented with Champions League match highlights, in-game clips and post-match highlights, which will run on the House of Highlights account and Bleacher Report’s main social handles. Twenty percent of the followers of the @brfootball Twitter account, which posts purely about European soccer, are from the U.S., while 12 percent of @brfootball’s Instagram followers are from the U.S., according to the publisher.

The U.S. Bleacher Report and Turner teams will handle broadcasting and streaming the matches, and the London team will take the lead on digital distribution, though all will collaborate heavily. The three-year UEFA rights deal doesn’t start until August, so Bleacher Report has started building momentum by posting other soccer-related content. The idea is to also grow interest via culture-related content about the sport’s players ahead of the FIFA World Cup, which starts in June and excludes the U.S. national team.

Last weekend, the London team started posting content that spotlights how European soccer players have recently referenced global cultural moments, in order to pique the interest of U.S. audiences that may not understand or care (yet) about the outcome or magnitude of certain team rivalries and matches. For example, Bleacher Report posted an image on its social accounts of Manchester United players celebrating their important win over Chelsea on Feb. 25 with the “Wakanda forever” gesture, a move from Marvel’s box-office hit “Black Panther.”

“Sport is all about storylines and narratives,” Grigg said. “[European] football is a big soap opera just like the NBA is, in terms of players moving teams, changing managers and celebrating on pitch in culturally relevant ways. We can help tell all that.”

Turner has strategically used Bleacher Report as the bridge between young fans and its traditional subscribers, according to Aaron Duckmanton, head of marketing for video tech company Grabyo. “Bleacher Report understands that the best way of reaching and engaging this [next-gen] audience is through mobile, social video, particularly on Instagram and Twitter, where interaction with influencers and sports personalities happens in real time,” he said.

“With most next-gen fans’ viewing habits driven by fashion, lifestyle and influencer content, Bleacher Report is leading the way when it comes to tapping into what content modern audiences want and what platforms they want to consume it on, something other publishers and broadcasters can learn from,” Duckmanton added.

Taking a player-led approach in the U.S. for Europe-based footballers is smart, though unforeseen commercial challenges may arise, according to Daniel Ayers, consulting partner at digital sports agency Seven League. “The challenge is that those global superstar players attract followers from a genuinely global audience, which may or may not be of interest to domestic U.S. sponsor partners,” he said.

The post Bleacher Report’s House of Highlights eyes soccer as a new growth area appeared first on Digiday.

VSCO — part photo-editing app, part social app — has a new pitch for brands: Use our artificial intelligence technology to find the creative talent you can afford and are likely lacking.

Energy bar brand PowerBar is using VSCO’s new service VSCO Connect, which the app launched in October, to find talent from VSCO’s community of photographers. To date, it has hired 10 photographers on a project basis to create hundreds of images for PowerBar’s social platforms, website and promotional content, including print ads.

PowerBar’s VSCO partnership is valuable to the brand, which runs all its social media content in-house and doesn’t have the manpower, time or money to find the talent to create the amount and caliber of content it needs to be successful on social, said Jennifer Hirst, senior manager of social and digital marketing at PowerBar parent company Premier Nutrition, who runs PowerBar’s six-person internal creative team.

The process is relatively hands off: PowerBar first sends a creative brief online in the Connect platform. “We are looking for a sense of joy in sports and camaraderie in the images,” said Hirst. “We want there to be a lightness and happiness to the story.”

VSCO then uses its AI technology, dubbed Ava, to determine which photographers match PowerBar’s style and aesthetic. The technology is able to scan photographs in its app and analyze not only the color theme of a photo, but the sentiment it conveys. From there, VSCO’s creative team makes sure the photographers understand the subtleties of PowerBar’s campaign. Hirst said VSCO gives PowerBar five photographers to choose from, and then about four weeks later, PowerBar receives the final product (which can be up to 60 assets). Hirst said the process is about two weeks shorter than using an agency.

Hirst said the new Connect service and AI functionality makes the process more streamlined. “We used to have to search through all of our images, but now we can go in and really narrow down what we’re looking for,” she said.

Instead of paying $40,000 to hire an agency and pay for a photographer and staff, PowerBar ends up paying around an eighth of that, according to Hirst, although VSCO said it’s in the process of deciding on a pricing fee and is in a testing phase.

There is an overall talent shortfall at brands, agencies and publishers. Keeping up with the rate people consume content is demanding, and discovering the right people with skills geared toward brand storytelling and entertainment has become a race in itself. VSCO Connect has also attracted brands like Nike, Chobani, Timberland and Strava.

“It is hard to find affordable talent. Consumers are getting more and more sophisticated in terms of visual aesthetic in the social and digital space, and the bar is continually set higher and higher for brands,” said Hirst. “We can’t get away with what we used to in terms of scrappy content. We need premium content that feels native and authentic to the user experience.”

In September 2016, PowerBar worked with a creative agency looking for sports photos that felt lively, an aesthetic that would align with its Joy of Sport campaign. After paying $40,000, it received disappointing images that resembled stock photography, said Hirst. It was then that PowerBar turned to VSCO. Hirst had heard about the up-and-coming app from friends and was “blown away” by the filters and creativity of the platform. So she cold-called the startup to see about partnering with it for social content.

Another reason why PowerBar is interested in working with VSCO is the access it receives to VSCO’s millennial and Gen Z community. VSCO doesn’t reveal how many creators it has, but it said 73 percent of its community is under 25 years old, and the fastest-growing segment is 13- to 17-year-olds.

The photographers PowerBar works with, such as Nathalia Allen, Laurel Golio and Tyree Harris, also act as influencers and can share the work they create to their followers. Similar to Instagram, VSCO users can follow their favorite creators and see their images appear in a feed. PowerBar also has its own profile that users can follow and from which they can like, repost and share images.

Image courtesy of Laurel Golio

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From inside a cavernous Manhattan event venue cordoned off into sections representing each of Walmart’s new private fashion labels, Walmart representatives milled about, wearing T-shirts with the company’s logo bedazzled in faux jewels peeping out from beneath crisp blazers.

They were gathered for a preview of the retail behemoth’s latest apparel collections — women’s brand Time & Tru, plus-size line Terra & Sky, menswear label George and Walmart’s first foray into childrenswear, Wonder Nation — which officially launched on Thursday in stores and online. At the same time, Walmart effectively shuttered long-held existing labels like White Stag and Faded Glory. It will retain third-party sellers like Levi’s and Lee.

At the presentation in Manhattan, the executives were particularly eager to show that the new products were reflective of popular style. “From a style standpoint, we want to do trend right,” said Twilla Brooks, Walmart’s vp of menswear apparel, showing off fresh gingham designs for George. While each of the Walmart employees remained insistent that the labels were inspired by consumer feedback across its more than 280 million weekly consumers, as well as a need to streamline its disjointed apparel inventory, the elephant in the room was undoubtedly Amazon.

As Amazon continues to become a private-label player, mass retailers that have long been in the in-house collection game are finding it’s getting harder to compete. Brands like Walmart, JCPenney, Kohl’s and Target are seeking ways to differentiate by creating new collections or experimenting with marketing strategies, as Amazon lays claim to a growing percentage of the apparel market. Now, companies like Walmart are realizing they can’t just stick to the status quo to beat the e-commerce giant.

Using private-label lines as a means to compete
Since Amazon decided to pour resources into building up its private-label roster, it’s proven what a retailer with its resources and customer data can do. With efforts like Amazon Prime Wardrobe and a growing list of specialized private labels, by the end of 2017, the company had amassed more than $21 million from its fashion lines, led by its Lark & Ro brand.

“Private label has been mass retail’s success story in its bid to lure consumers away from specialty stores,” said Katie Smith, retail analysis and insights director at Edited, a retail analytics firm. “For the shopper, the private label advantage is its affordable price point, which can be 50 percent of the overall retailer’s price [across other brands].”

At Walmart, this price is lower; according to data from Edited, Walmart’s average apparel price is $10.82, compared to $14.79 at Target. As a bargain brand, Walmart hopes its low price points will give it an edge among consumers that are spending a diminishing portion of their budgets on fashion, now just 3 percent, down from 6 percent in the 1980s.

And while Walmart has been hurt by heavy discounting in the past, its sellout rates of products have grown significantly, according to Edited. Between Q3 and Q4 of 2017, its apparel sellout rate grew by 489 percent, which Smith said is “a strong indication of customer favor.”

At the Walmart presentation on Tuesday, Deanah Baker, svp and general merchandise manager of apparel at Walmart, acknowledged that while the new collections aren’t exactly couture, they are significantly more fashionable than past styles. While showing products from the Time & Tru label, she touted the brand’s “elevated fabrics.”

Her goal is that Walmart’s loyal customer base — which shops online or in store an average of six times a month, she said — will be a captive audience to the upgraded styles. Up until now, the Walmart customer looked to the brand for basics like socks, T-shirts and jeans. Now it’s trying to rebrand itself as a bonafide apparel destination, and has “leaned into dresses and fashion tops,” Baker said.

In many ways, Walmart’s fashion trajectory is nearly identical to Amazon’s, which evolved from its private-label basic lines to a slew of fashion brands that shook up the market. At the same time, Walmart has attempted to establish itself in the apparel industry with strategic moves like investing in retail incubator Store No. 8 and acquiring digitally native brands like Modcloth and Bonobos, which Bonobos CEO Andy Dunn conceded initially seemed like a “strange fit.”

“Walmart is piggybacking on what everybody else is doing,” said Jackie Wilson, CEO of American Fashion Network, which produces private-label lines for brands like Amazon Fashion, American Eagle Outfitters, Kohl’s and JCPenney. “Kohl’s is incredibly successful with private and exclusive brands, and Target is kind of the crown of it all. think Walmart is going back in and looking at everything, and packing some compelling product behind the name and putting itself in a position to compete.”

Target, for example, has produced its own private labels for years, launching capsule collections with celebrities and designers as far back as 1999. Last year, it expanded its popular private labels, launching new brands like A New Day and also Joy Lab, an activewear collection by Who What Wear (which continues to design seasonal styles for the retailer).

Reimagining mass fashion in the age of Amazon
Seeing the success of retailers like Target — it continues to lead the pack in apparel sales, comprising 19 percent of its total sales, versus 16 percent at Amazon and 9 percent at Walmart — Walmart is attempting to try its hand at the retailer’s tactics including aspirational advertising, influencer marketing and physical store remodeling.

According to Baker, 1,000 stores in the U.S. will restructure their apparel sections, accommodating for the new collections with a focus on easier navigation, brighter lighting and improved signage. Additionally, the company brought on celebrity stylist Elizabeth Stewart to promote the collections and share outfit suggestions and tips with shoppers.

“We wanted to know what would allow them to spend more of their apparel wallet with us at Walmart. What they told us is we need more style from you, we need comfort and quality,” she said, referring to a series of feedback surveys sent out to existing shoppers.

However, Wilson said she doesn’t view Walmart as a viable fashion competitor to Amazon. Despite a focus on heightened style, she said there is still a disconnect between Walmart and fashion that will continue to support it as synonymous with bargains on hard goods. “I feel like what Walmart is doing, and how they are pitching this publicly and putting media behind this relaunch, misses the mark,” she said.

Adding to the challenge is Amazon’s vast wealth of data and algorithms that work in tandem to boost sales and  the visibility of private labels. Unlike most of its competitors, the company is uniquely equipped with billions of data points and advanced resources that provide intimate insights into consumer behavior. As a result, Amazon is better prepared to strategically target shoppers, using tactics like “add to order” buttons and recommended products features.

Looking to the future — not just for Walmart, but for all of its competitors — Wilson said she anticipates brands will focus on areas where they can actually make headway. While they’ll never have the amount of data, or master the scale and shipping speed of Amazon, they have the ability to build more personal connections with shoppers both in-store and online.

“Competing with Amazon doesn’t just necessarily mean having product on your website that you can ship and consumers will have tomorrow. It’s about everything that’s happening digitally. There are lots of moves in specific categories that retailers can use to capture that kind thing in the consumers’ mind.

The post How brands are using private-label fashion lines to compete with Amazon appeared first on Digiday.

In an effort to quell the losses from a crumbling digital ad market, weekly politics and culture magazine New Statesman is putting up a metered paywall.

Later this month, readers will be required to register with an email address after hitting a limit of three articles a week. After five articles a week, they’ll be asked to subscribe for an annual fee of £144 ($198). Subscribers will also get access to the digital version of the print magazine, what it’s calling NS Instant, two days before it hits the newsstand. The publisher is also introducing new products for subscribers: a new weekly podcast called “Prime Ministerial,” a historical look at the U.K.’s prime ministers; earlier access to its four other podcasts; a weekly email newsletter; and access to themed monthly events.

“We want our journalism to be read as widely as possible,” said Helen Lewis, deputy editor at the New Statesman. “You cannot fund our level of quality journalism through a display ad model.”

The publisher conducted an ad-blocking experiment in May 2016 asking readers for donations in exchange for an ad-light experience. After a few weeks, the number of donations was in the thousands, said the publisher, proving people were willing to pay to see fewer ads.

Once the New Statesman has built up its first-party data pool from registered users, it can charge advertisers a higher premium to target them. An in-house data team of three people will help crunch the numbers around what content converts people to registered users and then subscribers. It has two people dedicated to working on subscriptions, plus 14 editorial staffers, and plans to hire additional roles in production and editorial.

“We’ll use a data-led approach combined with editorial intuition [to inform the content strategy],” said Jasper Jackson, digital editor at the New Statesman. The New Statesman publishes around 10 online articles a day. Political analysis is its wheelhouse, but culture or lifestyle pieces can help expand the audience and introduce people to the New Statesman, while other content such as a lengthy profile of British politician Jacob Rees-Mogg, for instance, can work to convert people to subscribers. The publisher was unwilling to share specific digital subscriber goals.

The New Statesman is a small title, with 15,000 print subscribers in 2017 and 2,000 paying digital subscribers, according to the latest Audit Bureau of Circulation figures. “We’re building a personal relationship with the customer,” Lewis said. “We’re a small magazine, so we know that our readers are sacred.” According to the publisher, its most engaged readers visit the site five times a week and spend around five minutes on the site each time.

Although this will be the first step of the New Statesman’s subscriptions journey, it’s worth noting larger titles like the Financial Times are continuously tinkering with how to convert audiences to subscribers, said Douglas McCabe, CEO at Enders Analysis. “The focus has to be on the relationship between the editorial strategy and the membership strategy,” he said. “It’s not a single switch; it’s a funnel with many switches.”

A metered model allows the publisher to have the reach to convert audiences without giving away too much of its content. Audiences can be fully immersed and build habits through free-trial models. “With metered models, you’re building a perverse emotional, attitudinal relationship with a potential member where they might not read one article in case there’s something more interesting another day,” said McCabe. “It builds friction at the heart of the system.”

Publishers have flocked to reader-revenue strategies. But rather than being a quick fix to stem digital advertising losses, they require long-term vision even if the exact tactics are not fully fleshed out, investment in time, people — publishers need more employees with marketing and customer-centric skills — and technology. Turnover in the first year is the highest.

“The shift toward reader payment is real, but it’s not as real as people think,” said Nic Newman, editor of the Reuters Institute Digital News Report. “It’s a slow grind, and it’s not the complete answer.”

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YouTube last year stopped hiring white and Asian males for technical positions because they didn’t help the company achieve its goals for improving diversity, according to a civil complaint filed by a former employee.

Members of a U.S. national security panel are locked in a dispute over a hostile takeover bid for chip giant Qualcomm Inc., pitting officials in the departments of Justice and Defense against Treasury.

As the Discovery Communications-Scripps Networks Interactive merger reaches the finish line, Discovery is shaking up its management team, putting key Scripps execs in charge of the combined company as it unveiled its new leadership structure. Kathleen Finch, chief programming, content and brand officer for the six Scripps networks, will be chief lifestyle brands officer of…