WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:06.620 [upbeat music] But as industry leaders, we felt it was really important not just to focus on brand safety- Mm.... 2 00:00:06.630 --> 00:00:14.120 but to really start to focus on human safety, environmental safety, all of the other parts of safety that advertising can directly influence. Yeah. 3 00:00:14.160 --> 00:00:24.130 So let's talk about, like, brand safety and then responsible journalism because I was talking to someone earlier about a large packaged good advertiser who's like, "No, no news is brand safe, and we just don't wanna be there." 4 00:00:24.720 --> 00:00:37.060 First of all, how common is that, and how do you move the brand safety conversation? The reality is journalism should not be a luxury good that's only available to the at most 10% that will pay for news. It- Yeah. 5 00:00:37.380 --> 00:00:40.740 We need credible information. Yeah, it's a great question. 6 00:00:53.360 --> 00:01:06.960 [upbeat music] Welcome to the Rebooting show. I'm Brian Morrissey. Two conversations this week are from an event I co-hosted with Outbrain at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas a couple weeks ago. 7 00:01:07.560 --> 00:01:22.820 We brought together leaders to highlight the importance of advertising, supporting sustainable independent journalism, and I can't thank Outbrain enough for making this conversation happen and for sponsoring an entire series that I did on local independent journalism. 8 00:01:23.500 --> 00:01:30.880 First up, I speak to Crystal Olivieri. There was this whole period where brands were gonna bring everything in-house. Yeah. You remember that? That was a fun wave. 9 00:01:31.380 --> 00:01:41.820 Crystal is the Global Chief Innovation Officer at Group M, the largest ad buyer in the world. And we discussed the current economic climate and how advertisers are reacting when budgets get tighter. 10 00:01:42.300 --> 00:02:00.760 Now, that's usually when we see ad spending shrink, and the spending that remains usually is more heavily weighted towards performance, and that's why journalism needs to perform ultimately for clients in an advertising model, even if it's not to the degree that clients are used to with the kind of hyper-targeting offered by platforms. 11 00:02:01.850 --> 00:02:15.800 [upbeat music] Following my discussion with Crystal, I have another talk with David Kostman, co-founder of Outbrain, in which we take an expansive view of the year ahead for publishing and how publishers should think about weathering an uncertain economic time. 12 00:02:16.380 --> 00:02:25.460 You know, the word that kept coming up in Vegas when I spoke to people was uncertainty, and the other word was grind, as in it's gonna be a grind. Welcome to the downturn. Should be fun. 13 00:02:25.620 --> 00:02:39.780 Here's my conversation with Crystal. [upbeat music] Okay. And now from the advertiser side, I wanna bring Crystal Olivieri. Crystal is the Global Chief Innovation Officer at Group M. Welcome. Thank you for having me. 14 00:02:39.880 --> 00:02:40.960 Hi, everyone. 15 00:02:41.060 --> 00:02:53.100 I have to say, I was super stressed because, like, Crystal was so nice to do this, like [laughs] and, like, she's, like, back to back at all these meetings, and I was like, "We cannot start until Crystal shows up," and she sent me this, this text message. 16 00:02:53.160 --> 00:03:00.040 What did it read? Like, "I always show up." I always show up. [laughs] That's what I... It's my one thing. I, you know, I'll be there right on time- Yeah... but I'll always show up. 17 00:03:00.260 --> 00:03:09.240 Okay, I'm gonna start with you with the same question I, I asked David. How, how terrible is the year gonna be? In the back half of last year, we all thought the end of last year was gonna be really terrible, too. Yeah. 18 00:03:09.540 --> 00:03:18.540 And it ended up not necessarily playing out in that way. We saw a lot of advertisers and consumers spending a lot of money throughout the holiday season and things like that. 19 00:03:18.680 --> 00:03:25.920 I do think, obviously, with what's going on right now in the economy, the layoffs, we just saw more hit the press this week, it's not going away. 20 00:03:26.080 --> 00:03:30.060 I do think that consumers will pull back, which will mean that advertisers will be more reserved. 21 00:03:31.060 --> 00:03:43.900 However, we have some proven statistics that came out of COVID that advertisers that stopped advertising during a really hard time actually had a more difficult, lost more market share than advertisers who stayed in when people weren't actively out there. 22 00:03:44.360 --> 00:03:53.700 So I think that marketers paid attention to that, and I don't think they're necessarily gonna stop spending, but I think they're gonna be more responsible about how they think about their investments in media. 23 00:03:54.500 --> 00:04:00.400 So I'm hoping it's not a terrible year. I think it's gonna be a bumpy year. Okay. So do advertisers actually pay attention? 24 00:04:00.460 --> 00:04:16.579 Like, every, this is my, like, third, third recession as, like, a working adult, and e- each one I mark by reading those, like, ad age, uh, columns that, that say that, like, people that stop advertising during a recession end up, like, you know, hurting themselves in the long term. 25 00:04:17.120 --> 00:04:26.930 And I feel like the CFOs are like, they nod their heads, and they're like, "Yeah, cut the advertising." Yeah. I m- [scoffs] It varies brand by brand. Oh, God. Does it depend on client objectives? 26 00:04:27.159 --> 00:04:34.760 [laughs] Is that my way of ducking that question? It, you know, we hope that they pay attention to that. I think some do. I think some don't. 27 00:04:34.800 --> 00:04:43.940 It really depends on the brand, but I do believe that, you know, we have short-term memories. The recession was what? Yeah. Last recession was 15 years ago. Yeah. 28 00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:52.650 At least COVID was only two years ago, so hopefully some of those learnings that come out of COVID can be applied to this a little bit differently than some of those more long-term- Yeah. "Ah, that was so long... 29 00:04:52.700 --> 00:04:54.580 I don't remember that." Yeah. 30 00:04:54.600 --> 00:05:03.360 Well, I mean, that's, like, I mean, I, I, I was saying, like, I wrote about hangovers, and I, I think, like, the guy who I saw today who's definitely got a hangover now, he's probably gonna forget it and go back out tonight. 31 00:05:03.660 --> 00:05:15.469 Hundred percent. [laughs] I would take that bet. Those are good odds. [laughs] Yeah. So when you're talking w- with, with clients about, you know, the year ahead, and I know it depends on the client and stuff- Yeah... 32 00:05:15.469 --> 00:05:24.260 like this, I mean, what are w- what are they cutting, and what are they not cutting generally? You know, and a- again, it, it depends. 33 00:05:24.420 --> 00:05:31.750 I, in my role, I don't spend as much time necessarily talking to clients about their day-to-day budgets. I look at areas where they want to drive innovation, where they wanna- Yeah... 34 00:05:31.790 --> 00:05:41.240 focus on sort of how to change in areas that matter to them. I think the constant challenge you have is if things are not core into your operations, they're pretty easy to get cut. Yeah. 35 00:05:41.310 --> 00:05:48.420 So anything that's incremental, if it's not part of how your day to- how you day-to-day operate, how you have your KPIs set up, it's more likely to go. 36 00:05:49.320 --> 00:06:17.240 I think advertisers right now are struggling a little bit with the balance of how much money to spend in the, in the proven things that work versus where there are areas on the edge, where there are areas of innovation that they wanna invest into.And then how you balance performance and responsibility because really a lot of the conversations we're having now are in areas like I know this isn't a sustainability panel, but sustainability has been a really big topic, and having advertisers start to understand, "Oh, my media has carbon emissions. 37 00:06:17.940 --> 00:06:26.920 What does that mean as I start to think about shifting dollars?" Or, "I wanna make sure that I'm investing in, you know, publishers that represent diversity, equity and inclusion." 38 00:06:27.700 --> 00:06:34.300 However, I need to always be finding that balance between those two things. Yeah. So it's not a cookie-cutter approach. 39 00:06:34.340 --> 00:06:44.300 Like, there's no two clients that are handling that the same, and there's a list of things we work through. But I find that clients, none of the clients I'm speaking to wanna walk away from those priorities. 40 00:06:44.720 --> 00:06:50.759 They're trying to figure out how, you know, how to balance these, these- Well, I mean, I-... different forces. 41 00:06:50.980 --> 00:07:00.380 I, I'm glad you brought this up 'cause, like, during, you know, during the pandemic there was a lot of, uh, there was so much, like, just societal tumult going on. 42 00:07:00.400 --> 00:07:13.600 And, and a lot of advertisers said a l- made a lot of pledges, and they, they talked about a lot of things, and they talked about putting money into, you know, minority-owned firms. They talked about sustainability. 43 00:07:13.610 --> 00:07:23.100 They talked about supporting journalism and stuff like this. And now, like, the environment is different, right? And like I, I'm, like, reminded of, like, you know, the energy crisis in Europe. 44 00:07:23.180 --> 00:07:28.340 Like, everyone was super green and then, like, you know, an energy crisis and it's like fire up the coal plants. 45 00:07:29.140 --> 00:07:48.460 Isn't that, I mean, like, I would think that that is the big risk, that it's, it's one thing during, like, you know, really good times to talk about, like, this responsibility agenda, but it's another thing when thousands of people are getting, uh, are losing their jobs because there's a lack of demand out there in the economy. 46 00:07:49.260 --> 00:08:01.680 Yeah. Well, yes. I think for a lot of our advertisers, the last few years have been really eye-opening in terms of the industry. Specifically, I'll, I'll use the digital industry as a, as a good one- Sure... 47 00:08:01.800 --> 00:08:07.520 of it takes us a really long time to identify a problem, and then it takes us a really long time to address that problem. 48 00:08:07.720 --> 00:08:21.050 So think about privacy and the, the many, many years we went through hoarding all of the cookies and all of the data, and then, you know, GDPR was coming down and that was, it took a few years and then it was implemented and it's still 49 00:08:21.960 --> 00:08:31.330 iterative, and we have over here a whole bunch of different legislations that... I bring that up because these cha- these changes take a long time, but I think that advertisers 50 00:08:32.360 --> 00:08:36.280 want to learn from the mistakes of the past and be better from the things that we've done. 51 00:08:36.300 --> 00:08:42.280 And I know at, at least at the Group M level, like, we are really pushing for that and thinking that way, which is why we have our responsible investment framework. 52 00:08:43.220 --> 00:08:51.880 I go back to if it's not core to who you are, if it's not core to your mission, if it's not core to, to, to values you have to your consumers, it, it's probably gonna get cut. 53 00:08:52.360 --> 00:09:01.440 Luckily, a lot of the advertisers that we represent are also advertisers that it is core. You know, we have people inside of brands that their entire role is purpose marketing or, or responsible media. 54 00:09:01.460 --> 00:09:16.740 This is showing up more and more inside of brands to make sure that it's not just solely about, you know, the return on investment matters, but the path to how you're getting that return on investment i- is more responsible than it ever was. 55 00:09:16.760 --> 00:09:25.500 But it has to perform. But it ha- yes. I mean, yes. Yes. [laughs] So fir- first of all, for those who don't know, like, explain it how this responsible investment f- framework works. 56 00:09:25.529 --> 00:09:35.760 'Cause I think it's, like, interesting 'cause I've always thought, like, for a lot of the issues that face the media industry, really the solutions all lie at the brand level. 'Cause that's where the money starts. Yep. 57 00:09:35.860 --> 00:09:41.560 And I'm kinda reminded of, like, I always felt like there should be, like, ESG for, for ad buying. 58 00:09:41.820 --> 00:09:54.189 And, like, I know a lot of people, there's some movements against, like, ESG and stuff like this, but I think it's the only way to have, like, a more holistic look i- if you, unless you're just gonna have, like, a pure cutthroat capitalistic approach. 59 00:09:54.880 --> 00:10:04.620 Yeah. So we've started the responsible investment, or we launched the responsible investment framework, I believe in early twenty-twenty, maybe late twenty-nineteen, early twenty-twenty. 60 00:10:05.460 --> 00:10:16.740 We had been leading in the brand safety arena for over a decade. I think that's been an area where Group M was, was very, you know, we're well-known for things like viewability standards and setting up GARM. 61 00:10:17.100 --> 00:10:19.200 People complain to me all the time about it. Yeah, I know. 62 00:10:19.660 --> 00:10:39.960 [gentle music] No, you know, I like to pretend that. 63 00:10:40.200 --> 00:10:46.080 [laughs] But then we started to branch out in other areas. Like, one of the projects that my team actually ran was around data ethics. 64 00:10:46.680 --> 00:10:59.180 I had this whole thing happen at one point where a company had come in and I was like, "Wait, how do you collect your data?" And it was completely legal. It was just gross. And, uh- Wait, wait, wait, how was it? 65 00:10:59.220 --> 00:11:00.600 Tell us how it was. They, it... 66 00:11:00.640 --> 00:11:13.120 Well, they got in trouble, but it was a, it was a company that was providing free anti-service, antivirus software, and they were tracking every single URL you went to and then giving advertisers that for attribution. 67 00:11:13.880 --> 00:11:23.320 But I was like, there's no way a consumer who's downloading free antivirus software- Yeah... understands that every single URL they're going to is now being taken, given to advertisers. 68 00:11:23.680 --> 00:11:32.330 And we went through, like, a log and there were some pretty horrific things in there that you would never want anyone to know that you were, like, looking at. And it, it, like, struck us at this moment. 69 00:11:32.500 --> 00:11:40.100 I, I'll, I'll never forget sitting with my general counsel and she was like, "Listen, it's not illegal, but it's immoral. You're struggling with a data ethics issue." 70 00:11:40.780 --> 00:11:47.660 And we really, I, I personally ran with that and wanted to see how we could start to operationalize data ethics. 71 00:11:47.670 --> 00:11:53.980 There was a lot of conversation happening around sustainability, a lot of conversation happening around diversity, equity and inclusion, and then responsible journalism. 72 00:11:54.370 --> 00:12:06.840 And we realized that we, these five areas that sort of were being managed independently by different groups across the Group M that just were passionate about these topics-We could bring them together in a really powerful way through the framework. 73 00:12:06.900 --> 00:12:15.300 Now, the framework isn't a one-size-fits-all. Different clients, there's different... First of all, I would say different levels of where we are in sort of in the progression. 74 00:12:16.220 --> 00:12:23.540 Responsible journalism, transparently, is probably the most difficult of those five to really build scaled products and, and solutions around. 75 00:12:24.400 --> 00:12:34.200 But the framework allows for clients to say, "I really care about these three things," or, "I really care about this thing," or, "I care about all five of these things. What should I be doing in each of these areas?" 76 00:12:34.260 --> 00:12:41.380 Or, "How can I start to benchmark myself to make myself better, to be more responsible in this space?" So the framework is the umbrella. 77 00:12:41.420 --> 00:12:49.900 There's different products, solutions, standards that live within them, and we work on a client-by-client basis because some of these things can be standardized, but also some of them can't. 78 00:12:49.920 --> 00:12:52.909 Diversity, equity, and inclusion looks different in every market. So- Yeah... 79 00:12:52.960 --> 00:12:59.720 it's a way of thinking and a way of approaching, but as industry leaders, we felt it was really important not just to focus on brand safety- Mm-hmm... 80 00:12:59.729 --> 00:13:08.760 but to really start to focus on human safety, environmental safety, all of the other parts of, you know, safety that advertising can directly influence. Yeah. 81 00:13:08.800 --> 00:13:27.380 So let's talk about, like, brand safety and then responsible journalism because, like, uh, the reason I was, like, sort of joking, but they really did complain to me about it, is because brand safety wa- was often put in opposition to actually supporting journalism because a lot of advertisers said news by definition is not brand safe. 82 00:13:27.440 --> 00:13:34.380 I was talking to someone earlier about a large packaged good advertiser who's like, "No, no news is brand safe, but we just don't wanna be there." 83 00:13:34.410 --> 00:13:41.220 How-- First of all, how common is that, and how do you move the brand safety conversation or suitability or whatever- Yeah... the new term is? 84 00:13:41.260 --> 00:13:53.200 The reality is res- journalism should not be a luxury good that's only available to the at most ten percent that, that will pay for news. It- Yeah... we need credible information. Yeah, it's a great question. 85 00:13:53.600 --> 00:14:04.740 Br- brand safety sits on a spectrum. We have some brands that don't wanna be near anything that could remotely in any way have any sort of negative association, period. 86 00:14:05.420 --> 00:14:10.320 You have other brands that have higher tolerances of risk, and they're more comfortable in sort of a gray space. 87 00:14:11.260 --> 00:14:26.480 We've spent a lot of time over the last few years looking through our inclusion and exclusion lists because I think as an industry, when you start to think about those inclusion and exclusion lists, you can realize that actually some of the terms that you're blocking or that brands are blocking, they aren't actually, uh, risky. 88 00:14:26.740 --> 00:14:30.000 It's about context. It's about the sentiment of the article. It's not just about that word. 89 00:14:30.580 --> 00:14:40.520 You see, there are brands that don't wanna be anywhere near news, and though we have conversations and dialogue around that, we're-- we can't force any brand to do so. 90 00:14:40.580 --> 00:14:51.440 A lot of it comes into how we can provide controls, how we can provide data back, how they can sort of understand more about the sentiment behind it, and I think we're gonna be moving a lot more into that space. 91 00:14:52.080 --> 00:15:02.840 If we can get to a better place as an industry where it's not just news, but it's, it's the sentiment and the context of the article more deeply, not just the keyword, you can start to have different conversations with brands. 92 00:15:03.060 --> 00:15:13.510 Mm-hmm. N- most of our brands do advertise in news, though. You know, because- Okay, so the majority are not, like, completely including- But no. No, they haven't all just walked away from news in its entirety. Right. 93 00:15:13.520 --> 00:15:17.300 [chuckles] Well, that's reassuring. Yeah. But then there's the performance question, right? 94 00:15:17.700 --> 00:15:27.280 You know, when someone is, is reading the latest, I don't know how many votes there has been at this point on, uh- It's been very interesting to watch... McCarthy. Eight. By the end of this, maybe nine. Maybe. 95 00:15:27.300 --> 00:15:31.140 [laughs] Uh, but generally, people are not commercially minded and, and stuff like this. 96 00:15:31.260 --> 00:15:45.780 Like, I don't know what kind of performance metrics can be given that give your clients some confidence that it's even worth it at some point, because I just see, like, when times get tough, tell me if I'm wrong, but, like, usually everyone just flees to the safety of performance. 97 00:15:45.820 --> 00:15:57.230 What looks good on the spreadsheet is, is safer. It's a tough question. It's also a tough question 'cause I don't sit as close- Yeah... to, to some of those, but I'm gonna give my best here. Sure. What I will say is that 98 00:15:58.180 --> 00:16:08.040 for a long time, platforms definitely had an advantage because they were able to provide sort of that end-to-end, you know, reporting- Sure... on the performance, and, uh, you talked about that in the last panel. 99 00:16:08.960 --> 00:16:17.020 Technology's gotten better. Reporting's gotten better. None of our advertisers sit and think, "I'm gonna put five dollars here and ten dollars here." 100 00:16:17.060 --> 00:16:26.560 You know, it is called media investment because it functions as an investment. You know, we think about it in the same way we think about how you manage your financial investments. 101 00:16:26.600 --> 00:16:30.540 You may not know every stock that's sitting in that Vanguard ETF that you're buying. 102 00:16:31.310 --> 00:16:55.620 It's our responsibility to also, as the holding company, to be thinking about when we're going out and we're negotiating with publishers, how we're making sure that we're bringing out the right composite mix, that we have those right opportunities, that we're helping bring smaller, independent journalists and publications into the fold, and that's been a big area that we've been focused on 'cause ultimately, yes, they wanna go to what works, but we're the ones... 103 00:16:55.780 --> 00:17:06.830 You know, it, it's management of that investment portfolio, so it becomes about how do we make sure that it's a well-rounded portfolio, and that's been a big part of, you know, what we're working on. 104 00:17:06.880 --> 00:17:18.860 Ultimately, there are clients that read through every single URL to make sure they're comfortable with the inclusion/exclusion list, and it all depends also on, on the benchmarks of performance because when you start to go into different ways that you're measuring, 105 00:17:19.800 --> 00:17:27.560 especially with cookie deprecation and the changes, it's actually changed a lot of conversations around how you are measuring today. A lot of our clients historically really loved MTA. 106 00:17:28.000 --> 00:17:37.980 You know, multi-touch attribution all done through cookies. That world is not gonna look the same in the future. Like- Yeah... we have to start rethinking about what actually performance means. 107 00:17:38.980 --> 00:17:48.860 So it's been a really interesting dialogue, and all of this stuff happening at the same time- Yeah... as the changes in the data landscape. It's kinda left a- Yeah. I mean, I'm just wondering, I guess- Yeah... 108 00:17:48.920 --> 00:17:52.970 who I, I, I understand, like, with multi-touch attribution, like, going away and, like- Yeah... 109 00:17:52.970 --> 00:18:02.540 it'd be more econometric and stuff like this, but I also end up thinking that, like, oh, the platforms are gonna, like, you know, come up with their formula, which by the way, guess, guess who's gonna look best? 110 00:18:03.180 --> 00:18:13.396 Look, I think our, a lot of our, a lot of our marketers, platform partnerships are very important, but they do not wanna put-All of their eggs in that basket alone. 111 00:18:13.456 --> 00:18:19.036 It is an important partnership, it is an important relationship, it is important for their return on investment, but it is not the only place they wanna be. 112 00:18:19.856 --> 00:18:41.696 And they are seeing more, and I go back to that responsible investment framework, they are seeing more that there is a responsibility to support in these other areas in making sure that the media they're buying has reduced carbon emissions through various however we get there, in making sure that there is more investment towards Black-owned media, minority-owned media, how there is, they are funding and trying to help local journalists. 113 00:18:42.076 --> 00:18:51.716 I think the local journalism one is actually the hardest one because the, the mechanics aren't necessarily there fully in the same way. It's hard to spend money on local journalism. It is. 114 00:18:52.156 --> 00:18:56.455 And when you think about where the world is going, I, I use this statistic a lot. I saw it somewhere. 115 00:18:56.696 --> 00:19:09.276 You can quote me, but I don't, I can't remember where I got it, but it was like 40% of Gen Z are starting to search on TikTok, not on Google. There's a consumer consumption shift that's taking place. 116 00:19:10.256 --> 00:19:13.956 A lot of people aren't going to websites anymore. Yeah. They're just not. 117 00:19:14.036 --> 00:19:26.026 So it also becomes, how do we help local journalists start to think about and use the tools where the consumers of today and tomorrow are gonna be, to be able to tell their stories and to be able to get out there, and then to be able to make revenue against that? 118 00:19:26.816 --> 00:19:32.086 And that's really hard because local journalists, I think, struggle right now. They don't have the same resources as the big players, 119 00:19:33.036 --> 00:19:41.646 and the industry's moving really fast right now, so they also have to figure out what does that mean for th- for, like, where they spend their time, where they spend their money, and how they can get out there. 120 00:19:42.376 --> 00:19:45.586 So it's a really interesting moment. I know at Group M we're not ready to fully... 121 00:19:45.616 --> 00:19:57.386 We'll have an announcement coming in a few weeks, but there is more being, we're working on ways to be able to give local journalists around the world, not just in the US, around the world, and small, owned publications 122 00:19:58.296 --> 00:20:07.756 access to more resource to be able to, to do more- Mm-hmm... and to be able to drive some of these changes that they need to and think through these things. So that's a teaser, I guess. Yeah. I can't wait. 123 00:20:07.876 --> 00:20:17.096 More to come there. You probably don't have this figure or will tell me, but I'll ask anyway. You're putting me on the spot. Do you guys, do you track how much money is spent by your clients on 124 00:20:18.136 --> 00:20:29.265 journalism, on advertising run against journalism, and is it, like, increased or decreased? You know, I'm, I personally don't have that number. [laughs] So I am- That's fine... 125 00:20:29.296 --> 00:20:38.796 sure that someone in the investment organization does. [laughs] I'd like to believe, you know, we're data-driven, so- Yeah... I, I just, I don't have that figure. Okay. But you do measure it. You know- Theoretically... 126 00:20:38.856 --> 00:20:48.216 I'm gonna say yes. Okay, so a final thing, another, another, uh, question you will probably dodge, Twitter. Elon Musk had, had RSVP'd, but I don't think he made it. It's unfortunate. 127 00:20:48.896 --> 00:20:57.056 Uh- I, I wore the pants 'cause I thought he liked them. What? [laughs] What? First of all, like, how... I don't even know how close you are, if you're close at all to it. 128 00:20:57.096 --> 00:21:02.516 Like, what do they have to do in order to, like, placate, uh, advertisers to go back? It's a tough question. 129 00:21:03.256 --> 00:21:17.736 I- Advertisers, especially of platforms, they have an expectation of brand safety, of responsibility, of things like ethics, organizations living within there, and I think it's really important to still have those pieces in place. 130 00:21:18.396 --> 00:21:28.076 It's really important for advertisers to feel that they can have controls, to feel that they're not funding radicalized or, or misinformation. 131 00:21:29.076 --> 00:21:36.036 And for advertisers, I think it's deeply personal for each advertiser with, with Twitter. Our, again, I'm dodging to our investment team, sorry. 132 00:21:36.296 --> 00:21:44.096 Our investment team definitely oversees that more than I do, but I know that the challenge that advertisers have right now is, will, will my ads remain brand safe? 133 00:21:44.356 --> 00:21:50.576 There's also a reality that, like, a lot of advertisers, they're spent on Twitter, but there's also the organic use of Twitter. 134 00:21:50.636 --> 00:21:59.176 So I think some of the narrative that every advertiser had pulled out of Twitter, that wasn't necessarily like that was a media narrative, that we saw some brands come out and publicly say it. 135 00:21:59.936 --> 00:22:07.036 There were a lot of brands that weren't buying on Twitter prior to Elon taking over- Yeah... that just continued to not buy on Twitter. Yeah. Um- I don't know if it was my feed. 136 00:22:07.076 --> 00:22:15.416 It wasn't like it was filled with Fortune 500 companies. Yes. No, mine- [laughs] No. But I think especially there's different ex- and I'm noticing this more and more. 137 00:22:15.485 --> 00:22:21.396 Our advertisers are starting to think about almost tiers. This is your resource. This is where you sit. 138 00:22:21.456 --> 00:22:32.236 This is the expectation, and there is a higher expectation on what the platforms are gonna be able to do, and the degree of safety the platforms are gonna be able to provide and control. 139 00:22:32.276 --> 00:22:49.546 I think there's a bit more empathy for smaller independents that are up and coming and that don't have the same access to resource but are on a path to getting to a place where they can have those things, those- I mean, in general, and I know it depends on the client, is there more emphasis on context now? 140 00:22:49.586 --> 00:23:02.516 'Cause I feel like the pendulum swung too far, like, over the years to just audience targeting and I, and- Context works. Yeah. No, it's fine. It's like the original. [laughs] Yeah. It's really interesting. 141 00:23:02.656 --> 00:23:12.456 You know, my area of expertise is actually in data, so, um, I spend a lot of time with our clients talking about the transformation of the internet and what's going on with data and, and the data landscape. 142 00:23:13.116 --> 00:23:23.096 And I, I'm a very firm believer that we as an industry way over-index, as I, I mentioned before to your point, on audience-based targeting, on profiling. We swung way into creepy land. 143 00:23:23.316 --> 00:23:32.776 Like, nobody likes when you're sitting down having a conversation with your friend on the phone, you mention something that you've never even thought about or looked up before, and then 32 seconds later you're getting an ad for it on Instagram. 144 00:23:32.796 --> 00:23:37.876 Like, that is uncomfortable. It crosses people to, to- So are they listening to us on the phone yesterday? The dark side. I don't know. 145 00:23:38.016 --> 00:24:00.846 [gentle music] Um- See, this is the part that I find, like, amazing. 146 00:24:00.876 --> 00:24:07.336 I, I feel, you know, do I have proof? Do the people in the industry even remotely- Do I have proof? No. Of course not. 147 00:24:07.376 --> 00:24:14.166 But I mean it, you know, there's, there's definitely these factors that have made consumers really uncomfortable. They don't understand how it happens. 148 00:24:14.676 --> 00:24:28.675 Consumers don't understand what information you have with a cookie or without a cookieSo in this moment, as we're going through this transformation, we've been talking to brands about actually this is a really incredible time to take a step back, like a real big step back. 149 00:24:29.146 --> 00:24:41.376 And not just go in and hoard all-- like, go out and figure out how to set a target for X amount of records. Let's talk about what things you uniquely can understand about your consumers. 150 00:24:42.076 --> 00:24:45.256 Let's also start to think about all of the other data that lives inside of your ecosystem. 151 00:24:45.836 --> 00:25:02.696 You know, when I think about the FMCGs that don't own the relationships with the consumers, but they get SKU-level data from their retailers, like, you can start to do really interesting things with context, location, time to understand more about the, the sentiment of the person, the activities they're taking, the occasions that they're in. 152 00:25:03.336 --> 00:25:18.096 We're really pushing our, our marketers and ourselves to not just look for a one-to-one solution for audience, but to start to think about and leverage the capabilities that are out there, to start to think about data and unlocking sort of these models of the future. 153 00:25:18.116 --> 00:25:27.936 And with that, context is a big piece of the puzzle 'cause context feeds into a lot of how you can think about understanding where a person is at that time, what they're doing, why they're buying that product. 154 00:25:28.396 --> 00:25:35.836 I don't need to necessarily know who every person is. Yeah. I need to understand more about the why and the, and what's- Yeah... the motivators. 155 00:25:36.196 --> 00:25:46.186 So I do think that more brands, brands are really starting to open up and, you know, there were brands that never walked away from context, but I would, I would argue that a lot of them swung really far. 156 00:25:46.216 --> 00:25:51.796 And I would say we're, we're coming into a place now where that conversation's happening and it's exciting. Yeah. We've seen a lot of brands. 157 00:25:51.836 --> 00:26:01.356 There, there was this whole period where brands were gonna bring everything in-house. Yeah. You remember that? That was a fun wave. Most of them have reverted back. It is extremely expensive. It is complicated. 158 00:26:02.556 --> 00:26:10.176 Though the promise of programmatic, as we talk about, it's like, "Oh, you click a button and everything goes." That's not how it works [laughs]. So, like, you don't just get to set up and walk away. 159 00:26:10.296 --> 00:26:16.996 I think ad agencies are transforming. I think that it is, cloud still is a, is an important piece of this. Your scale is still an important piece of this. 160 00:26:17.416 --> 00:26:27.765 But I think more and more it is moving into a much more strategic relationship with our brands. It's not just about that media investment, it's about how we navigate the future, how we navigate these changes. 161 00:26:27.836 --> 00:26:34.556 Our relationships are trusted partners. So no, I don't think they're, I don't think they're going away. I think that just like anything else, there's an evolution taking place. 162 00:26:34.656 --> 00:26:47.316 But I do believe that w- the industry itself sort of proved that notion of being able to bring in-house doesn't work for most. It's expensive. It's you lose the economies of scale of learning. 163 00:26:48.056 --> 00:26:55.656 It's hard to stay top, like, in the top of new things that are coming out, new techniques and new ways of working. I'll be here. 164 00:26:56.086 --> 00:27:05.336 And also, historically, I saw Rishad Tobaccowala out in the lobby, and I, and I know-- I remember him famously saying, at least to me it was famous, that agencies are like cockroaches. 165 00:27:05.396 --> 00:27:15.676 They, they always find a way to survive [laughs] no matter what. You didn't prep me for this. Anyway, Crystal, thank you so much. Really appreciate it. And thank you all so much. I really appreciate you coming. 166 00:27:15.736 --> 00:27:30.056 Thank you. Um, thanks, thanks for being part of it. [upbeat music] Hope you enjoyed that discussion, and up next, I speak with David from Outbrain. 167 00:27:30.216 --> 00:27:43.796 [upbeat music] Hello and welcome to the Sustainable Journalism Imperative. My name is Alexander Allmayr. I'm, uh, the new chief revenue officer at Outbrain. 168 00:27:44.576 --> 00:27:48.716 I have to admit there are challenges, but where there are challenges, there are always opportunities. 169 00:27:48.736 --> 00:27:59.176 And I think we are blessed to work in a industry that has proven over time to be very fast-paced, very adaptive, and being able to thrive in such an environment. 170 00:27:59.236 --> 00:28:09.666 What I do see globally from Asia, from Europe, and in the US, there's a lot of uncertainty right now out there in the market. With that, I hand over to our panelists. First of all, 171 00:28:10.676 --> 00:28:17.796 I would like to ask Brian Morrissey on stage. I think I don't have to introduce Brian Morrissey. 172 00:28:18.265 --> 00:28:33.296 Nearly a decade president and chief editor of Digiday, and now founder of The Rebooting, a media company that observes where our industry is going, and there's nobody better suited for this panel than you. 173 00:28:33.356 --> 00:28:53.476 And on the panel, I can introduce David Kostman, our co-CEO, co-CEO of Outbrain, also chairman of various public companies, and also chairman of Nice, and I think very well suited to discuss today what we have ahead of us in this year, now in the week where we embark into twenty twenty-three. 174 00:28:53.916 --> 00:29:02.516 Thank you. Cool. Thank you so much. [audience applauding] David, welcome. Thank you all for being here. You know, I, I s- I left Digiday I guess two plus years ago and to start The Rebooting. 175 00:29:02.596 --> 00:29:13.516 I, I named it The Rebooting because I think at the time, at least during COVID, I'd been undergoing, like, tremendous changes. I was... I left, I left my job of ten years. I moved to Miami, which was very strange. 176 00:29:14.016 --> 00:29:22.156 And I think we all had a lot of different changes going on. At least I was one of those people, 'cause I feel like there was, like, two different, like, camps in COVID. 177 00:29:22.236 --> 00:29:31.956 Like, the people that were thinking, "This is gonna change so much," and the people who said, "Ah, this is gonna go back to normal," right? And I was, like, in the group like, "This is gonna change so much." 178 00:29:31.996 --> 00:29:40.336 That's why I called it The Rebooting. It's because I thought, like, this was gonna be the pivotal moment that caused a lot of change, not just in, like, publishing, but in society. 179 00:29:40.366 --> 00:29:49.336 And it turns out really what happened was not a ton changed. And I think the r- I think what is gonna happen in the next year is I think the change is just gonna be delayed. 180 00:29:49.556 --> 00:29:59.596 And so I think we're gonna talk about what lies ahead next year in twenty twenty-three, because I do think it's gonna be actually a year of rebooting to try to work in the brand a little bit. It is. 181 00:29:59.616 --> 00:30:08.400 David, I hope you don't mind. But I, I think that what's important is, you know-That it's gonna be a challenging year next year, no doubt. 182 00:30:08.920 --> 00:30:19.460 But that a lot of the things that were talked about during the pandemic, particularly around supporting journalism and, and being in bran-brand safe environments, that it doesn't get pushed to the side. 183 00:30:19.530 --> 00:30:26.580 And so I wanna, like, really zero in on that first in this conversation with David, and then talking to Crystal Olivieri. 184 00:30:26.720 --> 00:30:35.820 And we're gonna talk about whether or not we're gonna see a pullback in that sort of commitment to supporting high-quality journalism, because it's incredibly important. 185 00:30:35.960 --> 00:30:41.380 And I really wanna thank Outbrain for allowing, you know, this convers- enabling this conversation to really happen. 186 00:30:41.440 --> 00:30:55.480 You know, they've been great partners, and I just wrapped up a, a podcast series about local journalism that I did with people starting, you know, really bootstrapping small local journalism outfits that don't get a lot of attention. 187 00:30:55.500 --> 00:31:05.220 And, and, you know, I really wouldn't have been able to, like, have those conversations and, and have it, you know, frankly, be, like, commercially viable without, like, the support of, like, Outbrain. 188 00:31:05.320 --> 00:31:07.080 I thank you for that. It's great. It's our pleasure. 189 00:31:07.160 --> 00:31:19.220 It's great, great to be here with you and to talk about such an important topic of how we combine business and saving and helping journalism, which is very close to all our hearts, so. Okay. 190 00:31:19.280 --> 00:31:27.990 That's the optimistic stuff, David. I am. But let's get to, like, the reality. I mean, come on. That's not what this is about. This year's gonna be terrible, right? I'm an optimist- [laughs]... 191 00:31:28.000 --> 00:31:41.960 so you have to be an optimist. I think it actually is an opportunity for publishers and advertisers to recalibrate and reboot a little bit. I mean, obviously, we went through a craziness of '21 into pretty rough '22. 192 00:31:42.060 --> 00:31:51.180 I actually do think when you look, um, generally the advertising industry, and I think we've been suffering faster the impact of the economic environment because there's... 193 00:31:51.380 --> 00:32:00.000 So, so it's a frictionless decision for businesses to ramp up or down advertising. I think what we're seeing now, I was listening this morning to Satya from Microsoft. 194 00:32:00.060 --> 00:32:11.160 I mean, enterprise software companies are seeing it now happening more. I think we already got hit all pretty hard on advertising prices, so I think we haven't seen a further deterioration. 195 00:32:11.280 --> 00:32:21.960 So I'm optimistic, and I do think there's actually... We'll talk about it, hopefully. There's a lot of positive things that can happen for publishers and the, the press, and we know how important it is. 196 00:32:22.020 --> 00:32:25.960 And jokes aside- Okay... I think that's why it really is an important thing for us to- Yeah. 197 00:32:26.920 --> 00:32:33.870 So I, I, like, to keep with the Vegas theme, I, I, I wrote this morning, I changed it a little bit, like, in the lobby because I saw... 198 00:32:34.660 --> 00:32:42.080 I, I'm on East Coast time, and so I got up to have coffee at five o'clock in the morning. And luckily in Vegas, you can get anything, like, at any time. 199 00:32:42.160 --> 00:32:54.700 And I went down, and it's, it's a wonderful time in Las Vegas to, to go down to the hotel lobby because you've got the people on East Coast time with their laptops open, and you have the people coming in from the night, uh, still. 200 00:32:54.960 --> 00:33:04.180 And I was looking at this guy who was swaying in front of me. That's not me. That's not me. I... It was not, it was not David. [laughs] And I was thinking, "He's gonna be really hungover." 201 00:33:04.220 --> 00:33:11.220 And I kinda feel like we might be heading into, like, a little bit of, like, a hangover because I think during the pandemic, so much... 202 00:33:11.560 --> 00:33:20.680 There was, there were so many distortions to, to, you know, governments had put so much money into the economy that a lot of things were just put off. 203 00:33:20.820 --> 00:33:35.440 And so is, is flat the new up in the year ahead when it comes to advertising? Look, I think what, what we're looking at is pretty much flat and, you know, up single digits percentages. Uh, we have an analyst here, Laura. 204 00:33:35.500 --> 00:33:45.340 I'm not giving any predictions here for '23. Uh, but we're looking at sort of a flattish plus environment. We think there are opportunities. But if you look at the... 205 00:33:45.350 --> 00:33:53.060 I mean, I listen to all the podcasts, but I think even the big agencies have been all adjusting down their expectations. So I think a few months ago they're talking about double digits. 206 00:33:53.100 --> 00:34:02.040 I think everyone is looking at, you know, single digits. I think there are opportunities in digital of shifts of budgets. For example, we're investing a lot in video. 207 00:34:02.100 --> 00:34:13.240 We think video will grow faster than other, than other, than other areas. Uh, we're seeing brands that are looking for measurable outcomes. Alex talked about it a little bit, so we're investing a lot in that. 208 00:34:13.280 --> 00:34:16.890 But I think it's flattish to, you know- Okay... some, uh, degree up. 209 00:34:17.120 --> 00:34:25.140 But the one thing I would say, I mean, many companies, and we are one of them, we put the brakes on a lot of this already in the March, April timeframe. 210 00:34:25.760 --> 00:34:35.100 I mean, we, we, for example, we have a pretty big exposure to Europe, so we saw it happening. So it's not that right now, oh, there's a hangover, waking up now January, what do we do? 211 00:34:35.510 --> 00:34:44.550 And I think many companies have already been sort of adjusting to, to this environment. Okay. So usually in downturns, there's a flight to performance. I assume that we'll see that, right? 212 00:34:45.400 --> 00:34:56.340 Yeah, but I think performance, uh, we can discuss the word performance. I think also brand, enterprise brand- Were you gonna say it depends on client objectives? Uh, no, I c- you, you, you told me not to say it, so no. 213 00:34:56.620 --> 00:35:06.880 [laughs] It doesn't depend on client objectives. But when you look at... It, it is about performance, and I think everyone wants performance. Let's use the word performance to talk about measurable outcomes. 214 00:35:06.910 --> 00:35:15.669 So even enterprise brands that are, you know, spending more around awareness are going to look for more metrics that show: Where is my dollar spent? 215 00:35:15.740 --> 00:35:24.700 When we talk to CMOs, they say, "Hey, I need to prove why I'm spending these dollars." So we are going much heavier into attention metrics, engagement metrics. 216 00:35:24.780 --> 00:35:37.100 We are leveraging actually a lot of, uh, what we do, I mean, promoting a little bit was on performance. We're moving it to brands in a brand-safe environment and enabling brands to show real results for their dollars. 217 00:35:37.130 --> 00:35:42.080 So people will be looking for real results for their dollars, which I think is a very good thing overall. 218 00:35:42.140 --> 00:35:50.510 Okay, 'cause I think a lot of times when you hear performance, publishers end up thinking race to the bottom, right? And a race that they can't win, right? Because this... 219 00:35:50.820 --> 00:35:57.040 I think one good thing is th- in this conversation will not be about the duopoly 'cause the duopoly is now a oligopoly, so thank God. 220 00:35:57.440 --> 00:36:10.660 But in general, you know, publishers have not been able to win typically on performance against platform. Th-that, that's true, and I, I think, uh, I don't think that performance necessarily means a race to the bottom. 221 00:36:10.760 --> 00:36:21.184 That's what we're trying to say. I think there's ways to deliver real performanceWithout that race to the bottom, I do think that in this year, publishers do have an opportunity. 222 00:36:21.224 --> 00:36:30.344 I mean, we hopefully will talk about privacy and other trends that are helping the publishing industry. I mean, they're getting-- I mean, publishers are getting back the ownership of the user. 223 00:36:30.544 --> 00:36:42.604 I mean, cookie's disappearing, I mean, in twenty four. I don't know, but everyone is adjusting. So I think there are certain advantages of m-more emphasis on contextual. That's a good thing for publishers. 224 00:36:42.744 --> 00:36:54.184 More-- less ability of intermediaries in the ad tech ecosystem to use the data, it's a good thing for publishers that control the data. So I, I do think that that and what you see around... 225 00:36:54.664 --> 00:36:59.584 I'm still a believer that quality journalism is important, important for our younger generations. 226 00:36:59.844 --> 00:37:13.024 I-I'd love to see my kids read more real, you know, publications, and I think there's an opportunity here where I think social is more problematic. Journalism does provide a brand safe environment better than others. 227 00:37:13.184 --> 00:37:21.624 It's really about better use of data, uh, giving them, showing them real metrics of further attention, engagement, how much time did you spend on it. 228 00:37:21.664 --> 00:37:31.444 There's a lot of artificial intelligence that can help deliver these things. We are investing a lot in this, and I think it's really about demonstrating brand safe environment, but real measurable outcomes. 229 00:37:31.484 --> 00:37:54.104 I think there's an opportunity, really, there's a real opportunity here in the next two, three years for publishers to get back more of their fair share because of the reasons we discussed, and for us in the ad tech industry to provide much better measurements and ability to evaluate your campaigns, which will get higher brand dollars into brand safe environments of publishers. 230 00:37:54.144 --> 00:38:02.344 I think that will be a-- it's a win-win situation here that it's not happening tomorrow, but I think you'll, you'll see and you'll see the trends and not just us. 231 00:38:02.464 --> 00:38:15.724 Again, as I said, many companies, we're not promoting ourselves, are looking into this, and I think you'll see a very positive impact of brand dollars that are higher CPM dollars that are going to look for brand safe environments that they can find in publishers. 232 00:38:15.784 --> 00:38:25.444 So that's- Got it. You know. Okay. We're gonna leave it there. And, uh, David, thank you so much. Appreciate the conversation. It's great having a chat with you. Thank you for doing this. Okay. Thank you. 233 00:38:27.164 --> 00:38:39.364 [upbeat music] Thanks again for listening. Thank you to Jay Sparks of Podhelpus for producing this podcast. If you want a podcast like this one, get in touch with Jay. You can find jay at podhelp.us. 234 00:38:41.664 --> 00:39:00.024 [upbeat music]