Leaders at FIPP tout accelerated digital transformation and first-party data as sources of optimism PLUS The age of anonymity marks the end of the age of the influencer. Discuss

June 21, 2022

FIPP happened last week and Jonny Kaldor, my manager at Kaldor Ltd, which most people know by our platform Pugpig, was there. There was a positivity, in part as What's New in Publishing says was the first meeting in two years that was in person. While I am a bit jaded and have a few bruises from the disruption in the media industry to say it's the best time to be in publishing, I would say that things have turned a curve. The pandemic hit publishing hard and for those that survived, it does feel like dawn after a very dark period. Digital transformation did accelerate during the pandemic as Ralph Buchi of Axel Springer said. And a post-cookie, first-party data world will benefit publishers. There is plenty of room to be optimistic, and it's good for the industry to point to strategic changes that they have made.

Speaking of digital transformation, we have more details about the LA Times' off-platform audience team. They are working to attract young and not-so-young audiences that aren't aware of LA Times content on Instagram and TikTok but also using new formats such as AR and VR.

And maybe that optimism isn't so misplaced. Despite a lot of economic disruption with rising inflation and tightening credit, advertisers still project growth.

My view on these efforts has changed dramatically since I did a report for the Reuters Institute at Oxford in 2017. The report focused on a number of new formats and radically distributed efforts. Many of those radical distribution strategies didn't bear much fruit. It showed how over-reliance on the platforms didn't necessarily translate to revenue or conversion. I think that is key that while awareness is important, as any marketer will tell you, but awareness without the ability to move people further down the funnel ultimately isn't that valuable to sustainability.

PLUS WNIP has a great piece on how newsletters are dealing with instability in the ad market. It's a great read. Product managers! What analytics you should use for market fit. How long does a data visualisation take? And in The Atlantic, there is an intriguing piece saying that Gen Z yearns to be anonymous online not to be an influencer.

“There’s never been a more exciting time to be a publisher.” It would be easy to be negative after the last couple of years. But opening the first in-person FIPP Congress since 2019, the international industry association’s chief executive James Hewes said the overriding theme of the industry event was ‘positivity and progress’. Speaking to …

Despite instability in the wider economy and a precarious geopolitical climate, Cannes LIONS returned with a flourish if the broad smiles on everyone’s faces were any guide. Sunshine and glittering blue seas aside, the optimism was palpable, reflected by a total of 25,464 entries from 87 countries competing to become the global benchmark for creativity …

Los Angeles Times has formed a six-person team to create content on Instagram and TikTok for a young, diverse audience that may not already be part of the news publisher’s audience.

In this week's Media Briefing, media editor Kayleigh Barber reports on how the economic slowdown and Apple's Mail Privacy Protection feature have affected newsletter publishers' advertising businesses.

Product/market fit is the make-or-break factor for a company. It helps businesses understand whether their product has market appeal and they can dive into the product growth stage with confidence. We interviewed experienced product managers from different companies about metrics that help product teams achieve better results at different stages of product development.

Visualizing 3iap timesheets for 10 dataviz client projects.

Gen Z would rather be anonymous online.

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